Growing Upside Down
by Liria247
Summary: When Booth stumbles upon a gateway to Temperance Brennan's life as a foster child, she begins to open up about the heartaches of her time in the system. Rated T for tough themes. Please R/R!
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: I own nothing that you recognize. Please don't sue me.

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Growing Upside Down — Chapter 1

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_Can't escape a past  
That wasn't ever lived  
All beginnings ended  
Come back to start again  
And the people seem to falter  
As they watch you fall asunder  
Eyes are open and filled with wonder_

Growing Upside Down, _the Ditty Bops_

* * *

The lock clicked and the door swung open, revealing an apartment plunged into darkness. The open window shades allowed the residual yellow beams of the street lights below to illuminate several of the ancient artifacts arranged on the shelves in a soft glow. There was a jingle of metal as the key was removed from the lock just before the lights were flipped on in the apartment.

"Hey, Bones, thanks again for letting me crash here," Seeley Booth said, flashing a grin at his partner before dropping his overnight bag onto the nearest chair along with his brown leather jacket. Brennan replaced her keys in her purse after locking the door behind her.

"It's no problem, Booth. I have the space, and a building that is undergoing fumigation is not fit for habitation," she said. She dropped her purse onto the counter and headed toward the refrigerator. "Want anything to drink?"

"Sure, I'll take a beer," he told her, absently fingering through her collection of CDs. She retrieved two from the fridge and, uncapping them with a click, brought one over to her partner. They clinked bottles and each took a swig. "Not bad," he said approvingly. "Definitely an improvement over the Moroccan beer."

"I'm glad you approve," she told him.

"Thanks again for letting me crash on such short notice," he said.

"Again, you're welcome. I didn't get a chance to make up the guest room, so—"

"Don't worry, your couch is perfect," he told her with a grin. She cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows, setting her beer on the table.

"Booth, I have a guest room for a reason. It's no trouble at all. Just make yourself at home, I'll go grab the linens."

"Okay," he said as she turned and left down the hall. "Is there anything that I can do to help?"

"Actually," she called, her voice distant now, "yes, I have two spare pillows in my closet on the shelf above my dresses. Could you get those down so I can put pillowcases on them?"

"Sure thing, Bones," he said, setting his drink on a coaster and clearing his throat quietly. He made his way down the hall and into her bedroom. He didn't have reason to come in here often, but it was as he remembered: polished mahogany bedroom set, wooden floors mostly covered by an ivory area rug, walls painted a deep, rich blue, pale blue bedcoverings with accent pillows. It wasn't hard to locate her walk-in closet, and he fumbled around for a light switch for a moment before the area was illuminated successfully.

Booth had never been here before. The closet was large, with plenty of space to accommodate all of his partner's belts, shoes, and clothing. The row of garment bags near the back of the closet drew his attention and, sure enough, he saw two spare pillows resting on the shelf above. He pulled the first down easily, but there was something holding the second one back. Booth gave a sharp tug and pulled the pillow down.

Unfortunately, he didn't anticipate the small cardboard box toppling off of the shelf and smacking him clean in the face. With an "oomph," he stumbled backwards, tripping over some sort of shoe rack and falling sideways. It was lucky that the pillows were there, as he had been trying to catch the cardboard box so diligently that he was unable to break his fall.

Booth groaned into the pillows, taking a moment to recompose himself before getting to his feet again. He looked around for the box, hoping to put it back onto the shelf before Brennan noticed his prolonged absence. Most unfortunately, though, she chose that moment to investigate the circumstances of the crash.

"Booth, what on earth—" she began, her head reappearing in the walk-in closet. At the sight of him getting to his feet, she raised her eyebrows. "What happened?"

"Something smacked me in the face, it must have been resting on one of the pillows," he explained, kicking the pillows aside and turning toward the box.

In the course of the fall, it had turned sideways, the unsecured lid falling off and the contents beginning to spill out. Brennan had noticed and in a split second she was there beside him, with an "oh," of surprise, hurriedly scooping the contents back into the box. As she flipped the box upright, Booth noticed that her hands were trembling as she tried to force the lid back onto the box.

Wordlessly, Booth placed a steady hand over hers and looked over at his partner's face. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes closed, but a small tear managed to escape from beneath one of the lids. She quickly swatted at it with her free hand and blew out a slow breath, steeling herself. She opened her eyes again and met Booth's. Brennan looked back at the box and saw the reason that the lid wouldn't fit: two battered shoelaces were protruding over the edge. Booth, following her gaze, gave her hand a light, reassuring squeeze.

They were quiet for a moment longer, until Brennan slid her hand from under Booth's. Rather than hastily re-stowing the box on the shelf on which it had been, she bit her lip and removed the lid. As if asking permission to look inside, Booth locked his eyes on her cerulean ones.

"You okay, Bones?" he asked her softly. When she only nodded, he continued. "Want some space?"

"No," she said, surprising herself with the steadiness of her response. "Just a little time." She gave him a small smile, which he wanted to return but found that he was unable to. She studied his face for a moment. Then, suddenly, she stood.

"Come on," she said gently, offering her hand to help him stand.

"Bones—"

"It's okay," she told him. Brennan positioned the lit atop the cardboard box and lifted it easily, leading the way out of the closet. When Booth didn't immediately follow, she looked over her shoulder with a small smile. "Bring those pillows. You didn't come in here for nothing." He chuckled and rolled his eyes.

"Got 'em," he said, snatching the pillows up from the floor and flipping the light off. Brennan made her way back to her living room, setting the box down on the floor. She sat on the floor, her back propped up against the couch. Booth slid down onto the floor next to her, tossing the pillows onto a nearby chair.

Without looking at Booth, Brennan lifted the lid off of the box and set it aside. Inside was an odd enough conglomeration of objects: a long string of beads, several photographs, a child's teddy bear, a small book, a small ceramic box. Settled at the top of the box was a pair of worn, dirty, purple chucks, the laces still knotted together.

Carefully, Brennan lifted them from the box and turned the left shoe over in her hand. There, penned in tiny, neat print, was a list of names.

_ Geary_

_ McAllister_

_ Willis_

_ Cappadocia_

_ Hagerman_

_ Eby  
_

_ Conway_

_ Toyne_

_ Ackley_

Gingerly, she ran her fingers over the ink. She felt Booth's eyes on her and turned her head to face him.

"Nine," she told him. "It was fairly average for adolescents to spend less than three months in each place. The younger ones stayed longer. Our biology is predisposed to want to care for our young. Once the first signs of sexual maturity begin to emerge, the children are regarded as adults, no longer needing care. After puberty, the statistical probability of adoption dropped sharply." After a moment, she tilted the sole of the shoe towards Booth, who looked for himself at the list.

"Purple, huh?" he asked her, the corner of his lip twitching up in a grin. She shook her head, smiling softly.

"They were so cool," she recalled. "Everyone wanted a pair of purple Chucks. I begged my parents for them, and I got them at the start of my sophomore year of high school." She swallowed, unsure of where to start, not completely sure that she wanted to tell her story at all.

But wasn't that Angela's advice to her years ago? _Every once in a while, tell somebody something about yourself that you're not completely sure you want them to know. _ She looked back at her partner. This was Booth, she thought, a man who had risked so much for her safety, who had taken a bullet for her, who had done everything in his power to be there for her when she needed him the most. He had trusted her with the darkest secrets of his past.

He sat in silence beside her, trusting that she would speak when she was ready and only then. Until that moment came, she knew, he would simply sit with her.

Clutching the left shoe a little tighter in her hands, she began.

* * *

Temperance had rolled out of bed that morning, hopping on the cold wooden floors of her bedroom before pulling on a pair of warm socks. It was early, and the morning sun shone in through the gossamer white curtains on her bedroom window.

Usually her mom was awake at this hour as well, already drinking coffee and sitting with the morning crossword puzzle at the kitchen table. They would sit together and pass the puzzle back and forth, each filling in a clue. At first, Temperance had only been able to fill in a handful of the clues on her own, but as time went by she was able to solve almost as many of the clues as her mother. Almost.

But she was gone now, she thought sadly. They were gone. Each morning, she padded down the stairs and peeked into the kitchen, waiting, hoping that somehow her mother would be there again, sitting at the kitchen table. But it had been ten days of an empty table. Today made eleven.

Russ wasn't awake yet, and that was fine with her. They had been fighting more and talking less since their parents had vanished. He was convinced that they weren't coming back, and he tried to carry on for her. She had been so angry at Christmas morning, so angry at Russ for getting her hopes up, thinking that Mom and Dad had reappeared.

Padding into the kitchen, a note on the counter caught her eye. It was addressed to her, which was stupid of Russ, really, Temperance thought as she scoffed at his messy handwriting. They were the only ones left in their three-bedroom home in the quiet Chicago suburb of Elmwood Park.

That note, scrawled in her brother's handwriting on a sheet of paper torn from a yellow legal pad that her father used for planning lessons, had severed her from the life she knew. She hadn't fully believed it on that sunny December morning.

Russ had explained that he had gone up north to find work as a mechanic, probably in Michigan. He couldn't take care of her the way she deserved, the way she needed. He loved her and would see her again as soon as he could. And he had called the Department of Child and Family Services.

She had dropped the note back onto the counter, bewildered. She was alone. The clock read just before 8:30, but she hadn't known what to do. Brain in a frenzy of activity, she didn't know whether it was real. It seemed like a horrible prank. But the cars were all missing from the garage, and Russ's toothbrush was gone from the bathroom that they shared.

Just after she made her way out of the shower, still in a daze, there had been a knock on the door. The woman was chubby, a redhead in an A-line skirt and white blouse. And she gave Temperance two garbage bags and half an hour to pack some things.

She protested adamantly. She would not pack her things in garbage bags, not when there were perfectly good suitcases in the house. At first, the social worker protested, but Tempe was adamant.

Temperance never realized how difficult it would be. She was allowed one bag, along with her knapsack. She had scrambled up into her parents' bedroom, dove under the bed and retrieved a sturdy green duffel that belonged to her father. Into it, she began to pack: plenty of socks and underwear, a sewing kit, a spare pair of sneakers, the handful of makeup that she owned, a few photographs, several books, a few carefully-wrapped pieces of her mother's jewelry, among other things.

She took a last look back at the house through the window of the old Nissan Maxima driven by the social worker, a woman called Marla. She didn't care to know any more about this stranger, but continued to stare out the window of the car. The sun poured mockingly through the branches of the snow-coated tree branches. The trees used to remind her of lace when the snow and ice settled on the bare branches, but everything seemed colder now.

"Temperance, we're here," the red-haired woman said in a voice of gentle kindness as she cut the engine of the car. "Go ahead and grab your things. We're going to fill out some paperwork before we get you resettled, alright?" Tempe looked at the woman, quietly studying her, nodded, and climbed out of the car into the underground parking garage, slinging the knapsack over her shoulder and grabbing the strap of the duffel.

The woman peered at her over the tops of her glasses, as if waiting rather impatiently, as Temperance adjusted the weight of the duffel in her arms. She did not ask for help. She neither wanted nor needed it, she only followed silently up the concrete stairs and through a door.

The DCFS office was bustling with activity, in stark contrast with the parking garage they had just left. Two men in suits conversed in low voices as they passed in the carpeted hallway. Through an office window to her right she saw a young boy and girl sitting in plush chairs in front of a desk, being spoken to by a stern-looking woman with her blond hair drawn up in a tight bun. A kind-looking couple was standing with another female social worker who was carrying a toddler.

"Sweetheart," the redheaded woman addressed her, turning around sharply and gesturing to a plastic chair outside of an office door. "Could you sit tight for a moment here? You'll be meeting with Arthur soon to discuss some things before you go into emergency care. I'm going to grab your paperwork." Again, Tempe simply nodded, taking a seat where she was told. Her knapsack and duffel sat on the chair beside her, ensuring that nobody could occupy those seats without her direct permission.

She had never felt so alone before, so isolated, so immersed in the shadows. Her family, those who had loved and cared for her the most in the world, had abandoned her. Turning her head, she watched the social worker in the lobby hand the toddler in her arms to the young, happy-looking couple. The little boy was their new foster son, it seemed, and the couple couldn't have appeared happier about this.

Temperance steeled herself for the reality of the situation. Everyone wants a baby. The older you are, the worse your chances of ever being adopted, which was fine with her. She already had a family with Matthew, Christine, and Russ Brennan. At least, she thought she had.

Now, she wasn't so certain.

The door opened and she was shaken out of her reverie. An older man, with Coke-bottle glasses and graying hair, stood smiling at her.

"Temperance? Come on in, let's get this sorted out," he said. Tempe gathered up her things and allowed herself to be ushered into the office. Marla already sat in the burgundy-carpeted room in one of the polished wooden chairs in front of the desk. Temperance set her bags down and took a seat with the social workers.

The office was warm, despite the lower quality of the furniture in it. Mixed sports paraphernalia, particularly of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Chicago Cubs were cluttered among framed certificates and children's photographs.

"You a sports fan, Temperance?" Her head snapped up at the kind-faced man who had clearly noticed her looking at the prints.

"My parents were fans of the Cleveland Indians," she said without emotion.

"Ah," the man said, sitting in the chair behind his desk. "A worthy team. My name is Arthur Walters, and I'll be your social worker for as long as you are with us in social services." He reached out his hand, but Temperance simply crossed her arms in front of her, giving him a piercing look. "Yeah, I get that a lot. What do you say we go over some entry forms? Marla here wants to make a few phone calls so that we can get you a place to sleep tonight." With that, Marla excused herself, shutting Temperance and Arthur in the room.

For several minutes, Arthur asked her questions. Temperance's head was buzzing, and she answered each question with as much clarity as she could muster. Alone. The word danced in her head, taunting her, so she tried to shove the thought away. She needed to remain clearheaded. She was as detached as possible as she detailed what little she knew about the disappearance of her parents and her brother, her life in Elmwood Park. When she noted to Arthur that she had no known family to take her in, his eyes saddened.

"I'm really sorry to hear that, Scout," he said sympathetically. Temperance only nodded curtly.

"Me, too," she said.

"However," Arthur continued, "It should be of a little comfort to know that if your parents or brother turn up again, we will make it very easy for them to find you." He gave her a small, sad smile. "Do you have any questions for me?"

"Yes," she blurted out before she could stop herself. "All of those photographs, who are those children?"

"Ah," Arthur beamed around the room at the dozens upon dozens of photographs, "those are my kids, the ones that have passed through this office. I still keep in contact with many of them."

"What happened to them?"

"Well, of course, I've had many success stories, adoptions or responsible young adults who are pursuing good careers, good lives. See those two boys?" He indicated a photo of identical twin boys with short, dark hair and brightly colored t-shirts. "They were 7 when they came in here, Ernesto was abused because he was a little slow. Autism, you see. They ended up with a loving couple in Midtown where they could get the care that they needed. And that young man with in the graduation robes? His name is Simon, and after being raised in a family of meth addicts and passed around in the system, he has graduated from Illinois State and works as a junior editor at Random House.

"Some haven't been so lucky, though," he continued. "Vanessa, she's the one with the short blond hair, became involved with a gang. Never saw her again. And we lost Kenny to a heroin overdose two years ago.

"I want to share a bit of wisdom with you, Temperance, before you start out in this system. Because I know it isn't easy and I know things can go wrong. There are times when you're going to feel like you've lost control. But remember, where you go from here is your decision. Not literally, of course, but you can control your behavior and your attitude. You can control what you become, and how you handle what this system throws at you. Okay?"

Temperance nodded, listening to his words and taking in all of the photographs on the walls. When he offered, she took his business card from him, the one with his pager number so that she could contact him in case of emergencies, and tucked it into her backpack.

Arthur gave her a wink as they bid farewell, Marla whisking her out of the office with a hand on her shoulder. After another 30-minute drive to Wheaton, Marla pulled up in front of a nice brick house on a cul-de-sac.

"Welcome to your new home," Marla told her, gathering up her folder. Temperance followed, bags in hand, as she was led to the white front door.

"How long am I going to be here?"

"Honey, if things work out, you'll be here for a long time."

Temperance would eventually learn that the social workers always said that.

* * *

Hey all, thanks so much for reading! Now let me know what you think, if you would be so kind.

If there is interest, I'll continue to write. And if you get bored between updates, I do have another story published. And it's finished, so you won't have to wait for updates.

So, for now, that's all she wrote.

Liria


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks for all of the reviews, friends! I hope you enjoy the next installment

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Growing Upside Down — Chapter 2

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Almost immediately, the door swung open to reveal a teenage girl with long, braided hair and a dark complexion. She stared for a moment, chewing a piece of gum thoughtfully, before allowing them in.

"I'll go grab Jean," the girl said simply, leaving Temperance and Marla in the foyer. Temperance clutched her bags, not wanting to put them down. Marla had told her in the car about this family. Don and Jean Geary were a middle-aged couple who were unable to have children of their own, but chose to take in foster children instead. They had room for four children, and they currently had two; a 16-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. Don was a Bible professor at Wheaton College, and the couple was religious.

"Hello," a chubby, round-faced woman with light brown hair pulled into a long braid down her back came into the foyer, smiling, tailed by the Black girl. "You must be Temperance. My name is Jean Geary, it's lovely to meet you." The two shook hands, and Marla put her hand on Tempe's shoulder. She turned to face the social worker.

"Well, good luck," Marla told her. "Call if you need anything. Have a good evening!" She handed the thin manila folder to Jean and saw herself out the front door. Temperance turned and watched from a window as the social worker climbed back into the old red car and drove away, leaving her in unfamiliar territory. A hand on her back turned her attention back to the two others in the room.

"Well, Temperance," Jean said kindly, hand gently patting her back, "Let me help you with your bags. You'll be sharing a room upstairs with Tasha here," she said, indicating the other teenager. "Why don't you two go upstairs, help Temperance get settled, and give her the grand tour of the house. Dinner will be ready in an hour, and Don should be home soon enough, so you'll be able to meet him."

"Cool," the girl called Tasha said, popping her gum and looking at Temperance carefully. "Mind if I take your bag upstairs for you?" Tempe shrugged, and Tasha grabbed the duffel and started up the carpeted staircase into a hallway upstairs. "Bathroom's here, at the top of the stairs." The very short hallway ended in two doors, and Tempe followed Tasha into the one on the right.

"Here we are," she declared. "You sleep there," she said, indicating the twin bed at the end of the room, where she placed the duffel she was carrying. "The closet is here, I cleared some space for you earlier. Don't go touching my stuff, not like I have tons of things anyway. And you get the two bottom drawers of the dresser. You can unpack if you want, I'll leave you alone and call you for dinner later." Tasha gave her a smile and left.

Temperance stood there for a moment. The room was small, but functional, the ivory walls clean and the blue bedspreads clearly worn, but cared for. It was just after 5pm, but the winter sun was already setting, the fiery rays coming through the window next to what would be her bed. She was forsaken, she thought, watching the last breaths of the setting sun disappear over the horizon. She didn't bother to take her bookbag off of her back as she sat on the bed, furiously wiping the angry tears off of her cheek.

Soon, Temperance was lying sideways on the bed, curled around her duffel, which contained the precious memories of the life she had lived only two weeks before. She pretended be asleep when Tasha called to her that dinner was ready, only curling tighter around her duffel bag. She hoped, prayed to a god that she wasn't sure existed, that this wasn't real.

But she knew she'd be disappointed by that hope.

Tempe didn't realize that she had been sleeping until she awoke what seemed like hours later. It took a moment to re-orient herself to her new surroundings, to remember that she was no longer at home with Russ. A soft, yellow glow illuminated the room, the light from the lamp on the bedside table. Temperance sat up and, realizing that her knapsack was still on her back, slid the bag from her shoulders and set it next to the bed on the floor.

"Hey," a voice came from the other side of the room. Temperance turned sharply to find the African American teenager pulling on her pajama pants. "I was wonderin' when you'd wake up." Temperance said nothing, only swung her legs around and allowed them to dangle over the side of the bed, moving her duffel bag, too, to the floor. "You hungry? We saved you a plate from dinner."

Before she knew it, Tasha had ushered her downstairs, given her a glass of water, and placed a steaming plate of chicken alfredo. She sat across from her at the wooden table and was quiet for a moment. A glance at the microwave told Temperance that it was nearly 10pm. She picked at the food in front of her.

"I know you prob'ly don't wanna talk to me, or to anyone," Tasha said. "I didn't talk at all my first week in the system. But I've been in this shit four years, so if you got questions, ask 'em." Temperance was silent, pushing a strand of her limp brown hair behind her ears and continuing to concentrate on her pasta. "Okay, then, I'm just gonna talk, give you the run-down, see? And if you got questions, just interrupt and ask.

"First off, you won't stay long. None of us ever do. But this place? This is a very good home. We get good food, and no one hits here. 'Cept maybe the other fosters, but that's another story. The Gearys give chores, but they ain't bad. Schools here blow, but really, school blows everywhere. This your first time in the system? You can always tell the newbies."

"How?" Temperance asked, forgetting herself and asking. Tasha shrugged.

"You still got bags. Nice ones, I mean. My old, shitty suitcase fell apart pretty fast, so now I gotta use garbage bags to pack my stuff every time I get moved. I didn't think it'd be a big deal, didn't think I'd be in the system so long."

"How long?"

"Since I was 12. Seen the inside of tons of houses round here. Some homes are okay. Most of them are hell, or worse. You'll see. Like I said, nobody stays nowhere for long."

"How long have you been here?"

"Month or so. Hillary, the girl before you, just got released last week. Parents cleaned up and got her back. Kevin, he's 7, he's been here months. They don't like to move the little ones if they can help it. Kids like us? Well, I dunno, they just bounce us around. The older you get, the harder it is to get adopted, so the less we care. You a good kid?"

"Yes."

"You won't be for long. Not many you can trust, no respect, see? They treat us like shit, so we treat them like shit. Tit for tat."

"I don't know what that means."

"You'll learn. You're lucky to start out here, lucky you got me to help you out. I had to figure it all out myself." She leaned back in her chair and grinned smugly, examining her fingernails. Temperance eyed her suspiciously, finishing off the food and setting down her fork.

"Why should I trust you?"

"Chickie, I dunno whether you figured it out yet, but you got no one else. None of us do. We trust our own, and even then, you gotta go with caution. Stick with me, I'll lead you right." Temperance evaluated Tasha for a moment. She seemed to be telling the truth, to have taken an interest in her. And the girl was right; what did she have to lose?

She nodded curtly, and that was all it took.

The weekend went by quickly. Despite some initial disorientation when she woke, Temperance was quick to steel herself before going through the motions of the day. She hardly spoke to anyone, preferring to keep to herself. The Gearys seemed nice enough, though they were a bit religious for her taste. They were regular churchgoers, and so she found herself being dragged to a Sunday morning service with Tasha and Kevin, a very pale but active little boy that she had taken a liking to. The family wasn't Catholic, and so the service was nondenominational one.

Temperance stayed quiet during the whole service. She could not believe in God any longer. No merciful God would do this to her, to any child. It wasn't logical, it wasn't fair. She sat up straight and pretended to listen, but she heard nothing of the sermon.

All too soon, Monday morning arrived, and along with it came the first day at her new school. She woke early, showered, dressed, and collected her knapsack before Tasha had even opened a bleary eye. Tempe generally liked school. She had always been the quiet one in the front of the large classroom, not particularly pretty or charismatic, but she was Russ Brennan's little sister. That was always something.

She stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom, combing her now-dry hair and gazing at her reflection. Her own face seemed almost unfamiliar to her now, her hair hanging past her shoulders, her skin pale. She had never really used makeup before, but now, as she stared at her own reflection in the mirror, she fished some dark eyeliner and mascara out of her bag and applied it with care.

"Whoa, what's with the do?" Tasha asked, having finished brushing her teeth and now pulling on her sneakers. Tempe only shrugged. Just then, little Kevin pounded on the door.

"Jean says time to go. Temperance has to go early, so we all gotta go now." The two girls rolled their eyes at each other.

"Coming, Kevin." Now with shoes, coats, and bookbags, they made their way out to Jean's car and piled in. After struggling with some snow and ice along the two-mile road to the high school, they pulled up in front of an enormous stone building with a massive parking lot stretching to one side and the stadium lights of the football field were just visible around the back of the school.

"You going to be okay by yourself?" Jean asked Temperance. "You're just going to go to the main office to fill out some registration paperwork before classes start at 8."

"I'll be fine," she told Jean, quite a lot more securely than she felt.

But she was fine. Tasha showed her where the main office was and waited until she was done filling out forms and getting her course schedule processed. New classes in hand, Temperance allowed Tasha to point her in the right direction before finding her locker, stashing her winter coat in it, and locating the rooms that her classes would be in. Soon enough, students began to pour through the front door, the bell rang, and she was carried through the hallways by the current of students into her homeroom.

It was a large classroom, and she was one of the first there. The teacher, a young man with a short, stocky build and a head of short, tidy blond hair, was seated at his desk already. He looked up at her.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Good morning," she said. "My name is Temperance Brennan, I'm a transfer student and, according to my schedule, I've been assigned to your homeroom." He smiled and stood to shake her hand.

"Ah, yes, I received that memo this morning. Welcome to Wheaton North High School. I'm Mr. Clark. Well, Temperance, we do have assigned seats in this classroom, and I'm afraid that you'll have to take a seat in the back row, toward the left." She nodded, made her way through the first five rows of plastic desks, and took a seat in the back.

Temperance had never sat further back in a classroom than the second row, owing both to her last name and her preference as a student. It was different back here. Harder to see, harder to hear, harder to be heard. But it was very interesting, fascinating even, to observe the activity of the classroom as the other students, her classmates, filed into the room and took their seats, chatting, laughing, rubbing the sleep from their eyes, greeting each other.

"Hey, new kid," Temperance swung her head around to find that a red-haired, freckled boy was addressing her. "What's up?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off as the second bell rang to begin morning homeroom. Mr. Clark stood, gesturing the now-full classroom to stand with him. They all faced the American flag at the front of the room. After the Pledge of Allegiance had been recited, the class sat

"Good morning, good morning," he said cheerfully. "As you may have noticed, we have a new student with us today. Temperance, will you please stand and introduce yourself to the class?"

Temperance swallowed nervously but rose to her feet next to the desk, keeping her chin up and looking much more boldly than she felt around the room at the sea of unfamiliar people. She had never been the new kid in class. She took a breath.

"Hi, my name is Temperance Brennan and I just transferred from Elmwood Park." She stood for a moment, dozens of sets of eyes turned toward her, wondering if she was supposed to say or do anything else. Instead, she forced a small smile and sat down again, feeling winded.

"Okay, thank you. On to attendance, Shannon?" Mr. Clark began to call roll, and Temperance sank back into her chair, tapping her foot nervously.

"Hey," came a whisper. The redhead was trying to get her attention again. He smiled and stuck out his hand to her. "I'm Tim." She shook his hand quickly, then went back to staring around the room, glad that she had, more or less, found a friend.

When the bell rang ten minutes later for dismissal to 1st period classes, Temperance saw out of the corner of her eye that Tim had pushed past two jocks to make his way to her side as they left the room.

"So what's your first class, Temperance?"

"Trigonometry, room 213," she said.

"Impressive. I'm right next door in 211. Algebra. I'm not what you'd call mathematically inclined." The two of them followed the flow of students toward a staircase and began to climb to the second floor. "So what brings you to Wheaton?"

"Moved to the area," she told him honestly. It was her evasion, and he didn't notice.

"Cool," he said. "Hey, here's your room. See you later? Maybe I could introduce you to some friends at lunch?" Temperance was hesitant. She remembered what Tasha had told her, warning her about not getting too attached. At the same time, though, she was in no position to turn down friends. In spite of herself, she nodded.

"See you around," she told him, ducking into her classroom.

The rest of the morning went much as she had anticipated. In each class, she was reintroduced. In each class, most of the students ignored her, just as they had back in Elmwood Park. The only difference was that now they were faceless, people that she didn't know, and she had no desire to get to know any of them. She immersed herself in her schoolwork, into the familiar world of academics.

The lunch bell came and she found herself lost in a sea of a thousand students. There were just under 4,000 students here, and a third of them shared her lunch period. She looked around, bewildered, half tempted to take the lunch that Jean had packed and eat in the library. That sounded good, she thought, turning to find her way out of the cafeteria, until she ran smack into Tasha.

"Girl, watch where you goin'," she said. "You gonna get trampled in here if you keep stoppin' in the middle of traffic."

"I-I was just—"

"Don't worry 'bout it. Where you sittin'?"

"Well," Tempe said as she and Tasha found their way to the rows of tables lined up in the dining area, "a kid from my homeroom—"

"No, no," Tasha said with a bit of an attitude that she didn't like much. "Nobody's interested, you be careful now. None of these roaches care nothin' 'bout kids like us. Oh," she started, comprehension dawning. "They can't tell with you, can they? You don't look or dress like a foster kid, and you started school at a normal time, know what I'm saying?"

She did. She understood perfectly, but she found that this information didn't matter. Not now. Which was a good thing, because at that moment she felt a hand on her shoulder and whipped around to see who it was.

Tim took his hand off of her shoulder, smiling.

"Hey," he said. "We still on for lunch?" Tempe looked over at Tasha, who only raised her eyebrows. "Your friend can come."

"You two know each other?" Tempe asked.

"No," Tim said. "You coming?" Temperance looked at Tasha, eyebrows raised. Tasha gave her a bit of an eye roll and a look that clearly told her she wasn't going. So Temperance turned, lunch in hand, and followed the redhead to a table across the cafeteria.

She had never acquired friends, acquaintances, she should say, so easily. Tim's friends were a good-natured, open bunch who liked to talk and didn't ask her too many questions. She was intrigued by this bunch, even liked them.

As the days passed, she got to know them better, and became more or less integrated in with the group. Kate, who was a pretty and social blonde, had even invited her to a slumber party to celebrate her 16th birthday party. Temperance, who had never received such an invitation from one of the popular girls before, was so flustered that she said no before she'd even had time to think about it.

Each day, she missed her family so much it felt like there was an ache in her chest so heavy that her back was curling in an effort to protect her chest from any more pain. She tried to put up a front, and she was quite good at it. She spoke minimally, even at school, except for when she was speaking with her teachers. They did not notice that she was shy and withdrawn outside of the classroom.

When she returned with Tasha each day to the Geary's home, she sat at the kitchen table or up in her room, doing homework and helping Jean out with the housework. After those first few days, she didn't even speak much with Tasha, though they coexisted well as roommates. Everything was going smoothly with the family.

Then, in the first week of February, Temperance and Tasha came home to a house in disarray. An unfamiliar middle-aged man in a suit stood in the living room, and Kevin could be heard screaming upstairs.

"NO NO NO NONONO!"

Tasha and Temperance looked at each other quickly. Temperance dropped her bag by the front door and went upstairs to the room where Kevin and Paul, an 11-year-old who had recently been removed from his own home due to neglect, usually slept. Kevin was hanging onto the posts of his bed, from which Jean was attempting to gently pry him.

"Kevin, sweetheart, we have to go," she said soothingly. "Henry is downstairs, and he wants to take you back to your daddy. Wouldn't you like that?"

"NO!" he sobbed. "I don't want to go back with Daddy! I hate it there! I want to stay with you and Don and Tempe and Tasha!"

"I want you to stay here and live with me, too," Jean told him calmly, rubbing his back to calm the small boy down. "But your daddy loves you and wants you with him very much, he misses you."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is, and you're very lucky to have your daddy. He's probably much more fun than I am to hang out with, right? Come on, Kevin. It's time for you to go home."

Kevin allowed himself to be led out of the room, crying all the way, his things already packed into a garbage bag carried by Jean. On their way out of the room, Kevin caught sight of Temperance standing there, and she gave him a small smile and ruffled his hair, gently helping Jean lead him down the stairs into the foyer.

By the time they reached the foyer of the house, Kevin's subdued cries had turned to full-blown wail. Tasha was nowhere to be found. Kevin hugged Temperance good-bye, still sobbing, but before he could give Jean a hug, he tried to bolt back upstairs. The social worker was too quick, and had picked him up and carried the small child, wailing and hitting the social worker's back with his little fists, out the front door.

Temperance picked up her knapsack and made her way back up to her room, where she found Tasha sitting on her bed, filing her fingernails with a slim pink emery board. She looked up when Temperance entered.

"Goodbyes come often and they come fast in this shitty system," Tasha said without looking up. "I just stopped sayin' 'em."

"I get that," Temperance said, slipping her shoes off and sitting, cross-legged, on her bed. She pulled a book at random from her knapsack and opened it to the pages that had been assigned as homework.

"Least Kev won't have to put another name on his list," Tasha added. "He's to little anyway."

"Wait, what list?" Tasha's mouth fell agape at this comment, then closed promptly.

"Cain't believe I never told you," she said. She began to undo her belt buckle, which Temperance thought odd until she slid the belt from around her waist and tossed it to her. "Take a look at the buckle."

It wasn't on the buckle, but near the buckle that she needed to look. There, a list of names was carved crudely into the leather with what was probably a penknife. There were 16 names in total, and one name was present twice.

"Families that threw me out," Tasha said. "Some didn't actually throw me out, this is more of a list of places that didn't work out."

"The Gearys aren't here."

"You think I didn't know that? Geez, girl, you ain't never write a family on your list before you leave. Terrible luck. Nah, you can't start your own list yet. Not 'til you leave here."

"My parents are still out there," Temperance said with an edge of defiance. "I may not need a list at all."

"Chickie," Tasha said, giving a hollow laugh as she slipped her belt back through its loops in her jeans, "One way or the other, you in this shitty system. You may only have one name, but you got a list now, don't matter where you go from here."

It turned out that Temperance didn't need to wait long before starting her list. Less than a week after Kevin's removal from the home, Don Geary suffered a heart attack. Though he was okay in the end, it was decided that the children in their care would all be removed and placed elsewhere.

A new social worker showed up, one that Temperance had never seen, a petite woman called Lyla Mattison with curly blonde hair. She collected their files from Jean Geary and gave garbage bags to Tasha, who had thrown her last two away when she moved into the home. Paul's garbage bag was still intact, and Temperance's bags were still in good condition. The three children piled into the car, everything they owned squished into the trunk, and drove back to Chicago's DCFS.

The office was just as she remembered it. Lyla instructed them to take their bags to the waiting area, a carpeted room with old books and broken toys that was not visible to visitors, and sit quietly until they were called. With that, she turned on her heel and left.

"Well, this blows," Paul said, throwing himself into a chair, sinking as low as he could without falling off and crossing his arms over his chest. Tasha sighed and, rolling her eyes, sank into a chair across the room and picked up an old magazine. Temperance sank onto the carpeted floor, back against the wall, and pulled a book out of her knapsack. All of her schoolbooks from Wheaton North would be returned soon, and her bookbag felt sadly empty without their weight.

Paul was first to be called out, and then Tasha five minutes later. The minutes ticked by slowly, and Temperance remained alone in the room. Suddenly, she remembered what Tasha had told her; it was undeniably time for her to make a list, she thought bitterly. She looked around at her belongings, trying to decide.

Grimly, she undid the laces of her purple Chucks. Pulling the left shoe off and turning it over, she examined the sole. There was a recess in the white rubber, flat and smooth, so that wear on the shoe wouldn't disturb any writing. She pulled a black ballpoint pen out of her backpack and, in tiny, capital letters, penned 'GEARY.'

Recapping the pen, she slipped the shoe back, pulling the laces tight.

Her list had begun.

* * *

That's all she wrote, for now.

Keep reviewing, and I'll keep on writing. To all who reviewed before, thank you!

The next installment within a couple of days.

Later, gators!


	3. Chapter 3

* * *

Growing Upside Down — Chapter 3

* * *

"How are you holding up there, Temperance?" her permanent case worker, Arthur DiSantis, asked, peering over the top of his glasses at her with a look of concern in his eyes. Temperance shrugged, shifting in her chair. They stared at each other for a moment longer, Arthur simply sitting there and waiting for her to talk.

"How will I be able to complete my high school academics if I keep switching schools like this?" she blurted out, unable to contain the question that had been on her mind for days.

"Well," Arthur said, "I imagine it will take quite a lot of work. But you look like you are up for the challenge, is that correct?"

"Of course."

"Excellent. That is an excellent goal you've set, and I intend to see it happen. Any other questions."

"Yes," Temperance said, straightening in her chair and pushing a stray lock of brown hair behind her left ear. "If my parents reappear, how long will it take for them to find me?"

"Ah," he said, nodding in understanding. "Well, the paperwork will take up to two months to complete, but of course they'll be able to visit you until you can live with them again."

Temperance said nothing, only nodded. It had been six weeks already. Her optimism, while it had once been strong, was dwindling, and realism was taking root quickly in her heart. Each passing day, she knew, the chances grew slimmer and slimmer. And Russ wasn't coming back. She felt her heart steel at the thought of the brother who had abandoned her to go out and find work somewhere else. He had promised in the note that he would call as soon as he could.

But that call had never come. And she had stopped expecting it, even decided that, if he did call, she would not answer. He had abandoned her, after all.

"So, you ready for your new home?" Temperance shrugged.

"Is there a school there?" Arthur laughed cheerily, smiling at her.

"Of course there's a school there. It's out in the country, so the school's going to be smaller than Wheaton North, but there's a school."

"Then sure, I'll go." As if she had a choice.

Due to the lateness of the hour, Arthur explained, Temperance would spend the night in emergency care, with a young couple in the city who both worked from home, giving them plenty of time to devote to the foster children that they took in. This couple couldn't count for her list, Tasha had explained, the list was only for homes that she stayed in for longer than 72 hours. Temperance had been the only child in their care that evening, leaving early the next morning for the DCFS office. There, Arthur had the details of her new placement ready.

And that's how she came to be seated on the passenger side of an old Ford pickup with peeling black paint that was so old that it had almost faded to gray. The truck bounced along, the tires humming along the seemingly endless stretches of highway toward the center of the state. The thick, gray clouds looming overhead threatened snow.

Temperance gave another look at her new foster father. He was maybe in his mid-to late-40's in age, with grey starting to pepper his dark, sleekly parted hair. His teeth were a bit large and quite yellow, which was unsurprising, as the cab of the truck smelled strongly of cigarettes. Carl McAllister and his wife, Alice, raised livestock on his rural farm just outside the town of Mendota, Illinois, in LaSalle County. It was in the boonies, she knew. They had already been driving for an hour and a half.

Before long, the truck was slowing down and they turned onto a small dirt road caked with snow. Half a mile down the road a modest, two-story blue clapboard farmhouse with a white front door and white shutters came into view. There was a red barn at least three times the size of the house three hundred feet to the right, and a fenced-in pasture that stretched as far as she could tell around the expanse of frostbitten land. A number of trees surrounded the main farmhouse that, while skeletal in the deep February winter, promised a cheery sight come spring.

Carl pulled the truck down a path to the front of the house and cut the engine.

"Welcome home," he said, smiling a toothy grin. Temperance didn't smile back. She let herself out of the car and grabbed her bags from under the tarp in the truck bed, following Carl into the house.

"Alice," he called into the seemingly empty house, "I got her, come say hi." Everything in the house was mis-matched, well-worn, and cluttered, and generally clean. Two of the chairs and a sofa were covered in clear plastic. The house smelt of cedar, and the bare wooden floors groaned and squeaked at her every step. The walls were unadorned save for slightly peeling, discolored blue floral wallpaper.

A tall, thin woman with a heavy jaw and blonde hair so wispy that it seemed ready to blow away came into the den with a look of curiosity. She sized Temperance up with her sharp, beady dark eyes and gave her a small smile.

"Well, hello, Temperance," she said, her voice surprisingly high-pitched. "It will be so nice to have a girl around the house. We've got four boys right now, they're brothers. The three older ones are at school. Little Elijah, he's 11 months, is asleep upstairs. Why don't you go with Carl, he'll show you where your room is. You can unpack and then help me get dinner started."

Temperance didn't speak, she only nodded. She couldn't know whether these people could be trusted, and she wasn't about to take chances. Instead, she followed Carl up the squeaky staircase to the first landing. A few feet in front of them and to the left, he opened the door and pushed, stepping back and allowing Temperance into the room.

It was tiny, cramped with a bed, desk, and old armoire crammed into the room the size of a bathroom. Which made sense, she supposed, because the bathroom was right across the hall, and the house seemed symmetrically built. The walls were painted an eggshell brown, and the thin blankets on the bed were tattered. The tiny windowpane looked out onto the expanse of farmland behind the house. She set her bags down onto the bed.

"Not much," he said, "but it's your space. Now, the boys' room is across the hall." Opening the door to the left of the staircase, Temperance peeked into a larger room, still cramped, with two sets of bunk beds, a small wooden desk, and two dressers inside. The beds were made with the same worn and tattered blankets as in her own room. The bottom bunk of one of the beds had a stretch of chicken wire two feet high around in, though thick blankets covered the exposed wire, serving as a crib in which, she supposed, the smaller boy was sleeping.

"Okay, let's get you downstairs. Alice wants you help with some cooking this afternoon. Girl bonding, ya know? I'ma go out and register you with the school. What grade you in?"

"Tenth."

"Alrighty then, I'm off. Y'all have fun." Temperance nodded, going into the kitchen to find Alice, the chill from when Carl had opened the door following her through the sunlit den into the kitchen

She liked this house so far. There were lots of windows, which allowed sunlight to stream in. Temperance had always loved sunlight, preferring it immensely to the yellow glow of incandescent light bulbs. Alice was in the kitchen, rubbing some sort of seasoning into a roast.

"Hello, Temperance," she said cheerfully. "I'm glad to have you here. We never had a girl before, always boys to help with the farmwork, but I says to Carl, I says, 'Hey, girls can help out, too. And girls is more useful with housework, and with the baby now it would be nice to have the help.

"You're awfully quiet, you alright?"

She wanted to go home. That was all; home to Russ, home to her mom and dad, to her familiar school and her old life. But, physically, she was fine.

Just then, a sharp wail cried out through the white plastic baby monitor on the counter. Tempe froze for a moment, looking over at Alice. But Alice had her hands full with the roast, so she looked over her shoulder at Temperance.

"Could you go grab Elijah from the boys' room and bring him downstairs, please, dear?" Temperance nodded, rising and leaving the kitchen. The stairs squeaked under her weight as she climbed them, eventually finding her way to the room where the little boy was crying.

She leaned over the child's makeshift crib. The child, African American with short, curly hair and cheeks that were darker from his screaming, looked up at her with curious eyes, momentarily quieting to a whimper. Temperance wasn't sure what to do. She had never interacted with babies before, and didn't know how to handle this.

"Okay, Elijah, we're going to go downstairs now," she told the child. She felt silly, knowing that he could not really understand her, but she spoke to him anyway. Reaching into the crib, she picked him up, holding the little boy to her chest, surprised to find how tiny he was for his age. He quieted at the contact, sticking his thumb into his mouth and sucking on it contentedly.

He squirmed in her arms, turning to lock his jet-black, sparkling eyes on her own as if he'd never seen anything quite like her before. She smiled at him in spite of herself, and brought him back down to the kitchen. That afternoon, she learned how to change a diaper and fix a bottle of infant formula.

Later that afternoon, she met the other boys when they came home from school. They all had very short, curly black hair and seemed small for their ages. Jedidiah, Zion, and Samuel Brown had been driven from their own home by drugs, she would find out later. They were 10, 9, and 7, respectively, and the moment they returned to the house and discarded their knapsacks they bolted out back to the barn for the afternoon chores, completely unfazed by her presence.

When Carl got home, she witnessed the first beating she'd seen in foster care. It wasn't over the top; Carl struck Zion three times on the rear with his leather belt for acting out in school. Zion didn't even wince, he just stood there, bent over, face set.

School the following day was terrible for Temperance. Now, everyone knew that she was a foster child. They knew by her untimely arrival in their classroom, a new student on a Thursday morning. She stood in each class to be introduced to the other students, looking at the floor rather than into the jeering faces of her peers at this school. This high school was much smaller than the last one, with just under 500 students in the school. It was small enough for rumors about her to sweep the school by the end of the day. The teasing didn't begin until the following day, when a girl in her grade sneered and hissed "foster freak" into her ear after she had correctly recounted the events leading to the War of 1812

She arrived at the McAllister home that day, after meeting the three Brown boys at the bus stop, tired but glad for the weekend. They pushed open the door to the home and heard wailing, the cries of little Elijah, and shouting. Carl was losing his temper, it appeared.

"Shut up, shut UP, you goddam baby!" he hollered at the tiny boy that he held by the armpits, Alice bewildered across the room. At once, Zion bellowed out and he rushed forward with Jedidiah, trying to kick and bite and hit any bit of Carl that they could find. Temperance bolted forward in all of the commotion and wrenched the baby from his hands as gently as she could, so she wouldn't hurt Elijah.

Alice came forward at once for the child, and Temperance had little choice but to hand him over. An 'oomph' from behind her told her that Carl had landed a return kick straight to Zion's stomach in retaliation, knocking the wind out of him. He raised his hand to hit Jed, too, but the boy backed away quickly, dragging Zion, who was alert but gasping for air.

A tense silence filled the air.

"There's feed bags in the back of the pickup," Carl growled at them. "They need to be unloaded. Haul 'em to the loft." Without so much as a protest, Jed pulled his brother up from the ground and pushed the younger ones out the door.

"I want to watch Elijah," he said in a strong voice, looking Carl in the eye. Carl ground his teeth, his face still red from the earlier scuffle.

"Don't see how you can do that while you're haulin' feed, isn't that right," he spoke barely above a whisper. "No. Temperance here is going to take the baby. Let the screaming be punishment for her interferin' with my affairs."

"Your affairs?" Temperance blurted out in anger before she could stop herself. "Violence like that toward a baby could—"

Before she could finish, Carl had raised a hand and smacked her across the cheek. Bewildered, she staggered backward.

"That's gonna leave a mark, Carl, you oughtn't have done that," Alice said matter-of-factly.

"Good thing it's the weekend. It'll be faded by Monday. Give the girl the kid, Alice."

Ignoring the fire across her face, Temperance gathered Elijah into her arms. Hurriedly gathering his tiny coat and boots from upstairs, she walked out the front door and into the sunshine. She found Jed waiting there for her.

"Thanks," he said earnestly. Temperance nodded, re-shifting the baby's weight and walking across the snow-caked field and to the large barn. The pickup was parked in front of the house, something she thought that Carl must have done on purpose. The two younger boys met them halfway to the barn.

"You guys okay?" Jed asked, looking them over. "How's your stomach, Zion?" Zion shrugged, pulling his worn red jacket closer to his body.

"That's a angry mark, Temperance," Zion said, peering at her cheek. Temperance shrugged.

"You lucky, though," little Samuel piped up. "They less likely to hit you."

"Because I'm a girl."

"No," Samuel said, shaking his head. "Because you white. Marks show easier on white kids, and ain't nobody wanna get caught."

* * *

That evening, dinner was silent. Temperance hardly touched her greens and mashed potatoes, and did not eat any of the fried chicken on her plate. Jed, who was sitting across from her, gave her a meaningful look, cutting into the chicken breast with a fork and knife. She did not want to know the consequences of wasting food.

Though it was a Friday night, all of the kids went up to their rooms shortly after dinner, not wanting to augment the tensions of the afternoon. Shortly after finishing her homework, there was a soft knock on the bedroom door.

"Come in."

"Hey," Zion said as the door creaked open. He was followed by Jed, the two of them sitting on her bed. She turned the chair of the tiny desk and faced them.

"How are you doing?" she asked, and both nodded in response.

"Sam and Elijah are asleep in our room," Jed told her, absently playing with the blanket on her bed.

"Does that happen a lot? Carl's anger, I mean?" Temperance asked them quietly.

"Yeah," Jed said. "Mostly we just get extra work 'round the farm when he's angry. Couple weeks ago we had to re-dig holes for fence posts in the frozen ground. Took all day. We get the belt sometimes, though, and we gotta keep an eye on Elijah."

"Carl don't like the cryin' none."

"But we can't leave," Jed continued, "there's too many of us. Don't nobody want four kids, and we gotta stay together. So the soc say we should give 'em a chance. We been here our whole time in the system."

"Soc?"

"Social worker. Ours looks like an ostrich. But we won't be in the system much longer. My momma's tryin' to turn around, get rid of the crack. We may get to go home someday. Oh—" Jed said, turning and looking out the window. Temperance and Zion turned, too, heads crammed around the tiny window. A pinprick of yellow light jumped back and forth outside in the yard.

"I don't get why he goes to that barn so much, not like he's doin' any work," Zion said, sitting back on the bed. Jed shared a look with Temperance, and she began to understand. He leaned over and whispered into her ear.

"Found a tube of lube in a corner when I was cleanin' a couple of weeks back, and I don't mean no WD40."

It was horribly disgusting and barbaric, she thought later as she changed into her pajamas and crawled into bed. Curling in on herself, she tried to calm her racing thoughts, and at last, she fell into a fitful sleep.

The next thing she heard was a horrible, husky voice in her ear.

"Don't move."

The breath was hot, heavy, and smelt of stale alcohol. As her breathing grew shallow she made a move to get up, but a heavy weight pressed down on her chest.

"I said, don't move," Carl growled softly in her ear. To her horror, she saw that the bedroom door had been closed. "And don't try to cry out, either, or I'll slit your throat and I mean that, girlie." True to his word, she felt a thin strip of cool metal at her neck.

"Good," he said, eyeing her with a greed and hunger that made her screw her eyes closed.

She felt his calloused hands on her body and she wanted to lash out, but she was immobile, paralyzed by shock and fear and anxiety as he touched her. Her brain was screaming, her every nerve fiber alight with panic.

But she couldn't stop it.

Compartmentalize, she thought hastily.

And then his hands were under her shirt, and at the waist of her pants

Use your brain. Shut yourself off.

She felt her pajama pants being slid from her hips.

Three silent tears streamed rapidly over her temples, moistening her hair. Her brain continued to scream in terror as her legs were forced apart.

"You a virgin, girlie?" His voice, raspy with excitement, sent shivers down her spine. She was shaking visibly now. She didn't answer, she couldn't answer, and she heard the tinkle of metal as he undid his belt buckle and his pants slid to the floor, and then he was over her and his hand was between her legs and her brain and her body were still crying for her to let go.

And then, suddenly, she felt nothing.

Almost nothing.

Her chest was crushed when he collapsed, cool with sweat and stale alcohol and tobacco, onto her. She gasped, lungs pleading for air. He got up after what felt like an hour and whispered hoarsely into her ear.

"Not a word or a hint to anyone, got that, girlie? Or I will slit your throat and smother that goddamn baby. Got it?" She felt the sharp edge of the knife again at her throat

All she could do was nod, careful not to allow the knife to bite into her.

Finally, the knife was withdrawn and she heard him leave. She lay in bed, afraid to move, heart still pounding. Tears were no longer poured down her face. She heard Carl return to his room with Alice, and heard the bed springs creak as he crawled in beside his wife. The though made her shudder. Then she began to count.

"One, two, three, four," she said each number softly, carefully enunciating each syllable, focusing on counting and only counting. "Five, six, seven…" She kept counting, kept her mind clear.

Once she had reached 500, she calmly stood, pulled her pajamas back on, and crept out of the room. The bathroom light buzzed softly with electricity as she closed the door firmly behind her. Temperance took a steadying breath and, gripping both sides of the cool metal sink with her hands, looked up at her reflection in the mirror.

Her face tear-stained and dirty, her eyes deadened, but aside from that she looked the same. She didn't know for how long she stared, her own visage betraying her. A sudden wave of nausea overcame her and she succumbed, collapsing to the ground and vomiting in the toilet. Gasping, she coughed and flushed the toilet. She wiped her mouth and stood again.

She rinsed her mouth and brushed her teeth vigorously to remove the acrid taste of gastric juices. Picking up her hairbrush, she carefully combed through her brown locks until they lay smooth and pulled her hair up into a ponytail. Finally, she picked up a washcloth and wet it in the sink.

She wanted so desperately to take a shower, but she did not want to wake anyone in the house. So she scrubbed with a soapy washcloth, trying to remove every trace of him from her body. Scrubbing, then rinsing with another damp washcloth.

Scrub, rinse, scrub, rinse. Over and over until her skin felt raw.

But it would be a long time before she felt physically clean again.

* * *

Okay, take a moment to breathe. That may have been distressing to read.

If you or anyone you know has been a victim of a sex crime, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline toll-free at 1-800-656-HOPE. That's my PSA to all of you.

That being said, I thank you all again for your reviews! I look forward to reading your comments on this chapter, and as usual you can expect an update in a couple of days. I have chapters 4 and 5 written already, I just need to go back and edit.

And don't worry, there's more B/B interaction in the next chapter. Booth won't be in every chapter, because this fic focuses more on Brennan's past than on Booth's reaction to Brennan's past, but Booth will still be in the story every couple of chapters.

Thanks!

Liria.


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Growing Upside Down — Chapter 4

* * *

A quiet tear slid down her face, almost undetected. After a split second, she reached up and brushed the tear from her cheek, unclenching a hand from the purple Chuck shoe for the first time since she began speaking. With a barely audible gasping breath, she turned her head away from her partner, finding that she couldn't look at him.

Booth had not spoken a word, only sitting beside her and listening, his upper arm keeping feather-light contact with her own simply to let her know that he was still there, that he had never left.

Each of her words, laden with pain, had struck him squarely in the chest.

He had known that sexual assault was a possibility in her past, but he had hoped, prayed, that she hadn't been a victim. It enraged him that anyone could attack a girl's body and mind at a time of such vulnerability, that a monster who had been entrusted with her safety could so brutally betray her.

And then Brennan turned to face him, having dried her tears, and was surprised to find that his own eyes were pink and glistened with tears.

"You're shaking," she said softly. And he was, his arms quivering almost undetectably with rage.

"Yeah," he said simply. "Because I'm furious that someone could do that to you, to anyone—" his voice broke, and then regained strength. "—And I wanna find the bastard and make him suffer more than he could ever imagine." For a moment, she said nothing, only reaching her right hand over and resting it comfortingly on his knee.

"It's okay," she told him calmly.

"Okay?" he sputtered, voice raised in fury, jaw clenched and eyes alight with anger. "Bones, there is _nothing_ okay about what you—"

"Booth," she interrupted, voice slightly raised, but still calm. "I'm okay. I'm okay now." He searched her eyes with his own, the cerulean blue shining determinedly back at him, trying to tell him that he didn't need to be angry on her behalf. He let out a soft sigh, shaking his head almost imperceptibly.

"Alice know?" he asked after a moment. Brennan shook her head grimly.

"She was unaware," she told him, settling back against the sofa, the shoe still in her hand. "She woke me the next morning before dawn to collect eggs from the henhouse, gave me tampons later because she saw the blood on my sheets and thought I was menstruating. She was always kind to me.

"But I was terrified of Carl after that. I stopped making eye contact with him. My bedroom door didn't have a lock, and I wasn't strong enough to block it with anything else. I hardly slept after that. Every time I started to fall asleep, I'd think I heard a noise, a creaking floorboard, a door, and I'd jolt awake again. I thought about sleeping in the barn, but that wasn't safe either.

"I started sleeping more and more during the day. I would sleep at school, during lunch and through some of my classes, for chunks of time during the day, and at night when I was sure Carl was already asleep. My teachers noticed, of course, and they asked me about it, but I told them I was tired. My homework and test scores were flawless, so to them, there was no reason to report anything.

"The youngest boys never knew. Jed found out, though. It was late one night, and I whimpered, and he pushed open the door and saw, and Carl saw him. Carl told Jed that he'd separate his family if he ever said anything, and all that Jed wanted in foster care was to keep his brothers together. All anyone had in that system was each other, if you were even that lucky.

"Carl never hit me, ever, but he found the opportunity to assault me almost a dozen times, unprotected. I was terrified of becoming pregnant, terrified of contracting a disease, because even if I had told the authorities what had happened, nobody would have believed me. Carl would spin some tale about how I slept around at the school, and I would have to face serious repercussions. But I couldn't do anything.

"I called Arthur twice, but Alice sat with me when I was making the calls. I had no power to change anything, because if I said something, Carl wouldn't know who told, and Jed would have to suffer for what I had done. But life went on as usual for a while. I was almost completely responsible for taking care of little Elijah, and I learned ways to keep him quiet when Carl was around. I was afraid that he would cry while I was out at school, though, and that Alice wouldn't be able to calm him down. Even she was afraid of facing Carl's temper.

"Even though Elijah was underdeveloped, he made some progress while I was with him. He started to crawl, and he said his first word: Why. Since it's monosyllabic I wasn't sure that it counted, but then he said another word the next day: Dog. He had this little blue teddy bear that he clung to, the boys told me that it had once belonged to Samuel, and that was its name, Dog."

She gave a small laugh, and gingerly reaching into the box she withdrew a small, handmade blue teddy bear, handing it to Booth. He took it from her. The blue color seemed to have faded with age, it was quite dirty, and one of its eyes was missing.

"How much longer were you there?" Booth asked her softly, handing the bear back.

"Until the last week in May," she told him, her voice trembling imperceptibly. When he was quiet, she continued. "Alice was at a doctor's appointment when I got back from school one day. I remember putting down my backpack and checking on Elijah. He was down for a nap, so I grabbed the baby monitor from the kitchen counter and went out to the barn with the other boys to get out work done. When we went back in before dinner, Alice was back, and she was crying and screaming hysterically at Carl.

"They told us—" Brennan choked out, her voice breaking. "They told us that it was SIDS, that Elijah had simply not woken up from his nap. It made sense to me; after all, I had the baby monitor with me in the barn. I had it with me the whole time, and it was working. But then I found out that the other monitor had been turned off. And I know, I _know_, that it was on when I left.

"They had to call the ambulance and the police, and Child Services came, too. We were all questioned, but while Child Services was taking a report from Carl and Alice, I found a paramedic. I asked him to look for bruises, and Samuel was right, it's harder for bruises to be noticed on an African-American child. But he found them."

Booth reached out a comforting hand toward her shoulder, but she flinched, pulling away. Too late, both realized why.

"Sorry," Booth muttered, withdrawing his hand quickly.

"It's okay," Brennan said, avoiding his eyes. "The police arrested the McAllisters within ten minutes on suspicion of homicide. DCFS removed us. The boys got new garbage bags, we packed, and a social worker got us out. She took us to a diner off the highway when she realized we hadn't eaten, and just after sundown we were in emergency care in Joliet, two counties away.

"That night, Samuel and Zion couldn't stop crying. Jedidiah, he knew that he had to stay strong to keep the rest of them together. He told me that night that it would be easier now, to keep three together instead of four. It sounds awful, but that's how the system works. Elijah's remains were returned to his parents.

"The next morning, I was taken back to the DCFS office. Jed, Zion and Samuel stayed behind. They would take longer to place, and I had another family to stay with by sundown."

A heavy silence weighed on Brennan and Booth. Their beers from earlier had grown warm, forgotten. Booth wasn't sure that he wanted to hear more. He hated that her innocence had been robbed, that her vulnerability and trust and sense of whimsy had been snatched from her too early in life. She had been imprisoned and tortured just as he had, but while his imprisonment was by the enemy, her own protectors had betrayed her.

Brennan looked over at her partner, noting with surprise the look of shock and sympathy that crossed his features. She set the teddy bear aside, next to the cardboard box of memories that she was metaphorically unpacking, and stood, collecting the empty bottles and heading into her kitchen. Booth's head turned, his eyes watching her inquisitively.

"I could use a cup of tea," she said, filling a kettle halfway with water and setting it onto the stove. "Would you like one?" Booth nodded.

"Thanks," he said, standing and joining her in the kitchen. "Are you okay?" Brennan sighed, turning her head slightly to the side and looking at him.

"Admittedly, re-living the memories is affecting me more than I would like," she told him. "And I didn't realize that this would take so long. Just let me know if you want to do something else, I'll stop."

"No, Bones, hey," he said, "It's okay. Thank you for letting me listen."

He wanted so badly to hold her in his embrace, but something held him back. Instead, he stayed close to her, close enough that she could reach out to him, when she was ready.

Minutes later, the two of them sat on the couch, steaming mugs of tea in hand. Brennan curled her legs under her and reached again for the purple shoe, settling it beside her.

On her other side, Booth sat vigilant, waiting quietly with his right arm slung over the back of her sofa, showing her, by the simple virtue of his presence, that he wasn't going anywhere.

A faint smile crossed her lips for a fleeting moment. With the mug still clutched in her hand, she continued.

* * *

"Hey, Scout, it's good to see you again," Arthur DiSantis said as Temperance took a seat in the familiar wooden chair opposite his desk. She folded her arms over her chest, her face set and clear of emotion.

The office, she had learned, would be the hub of her life until she got out of the system. Sure, they always sent her off in different directions, but like a boomerang she undoubtedly returned here, waiting to be chucked out again into unfamiliar territory.

She hated this, hated it with a fiery passion, this feeling of having all power stripped away, and what she hated more is that her vulnerability had allowed that to happen. That's why she sat here, now, her facial expression controlled.

She could not allow that to happen again.

The walls in the office had changed very little, save for several new photographs, one of them her own, that had been tacked up. Arthur still sat quietly, scrutinizing her with his piercing eyes, saying nothing for a moment.

"I'm sorry to hear about what happened to Elijah Brown," he said sympathetically. "That must have been difficult. But I hear that you are the person who caught the signs of foul play that led charges to be filed against the McAllisters, is that correct?"

"Yes, that is correct." Simple, concise. She would speak like this more often, it left less room for interpretation.

"Generally, with an incident like this, such violence from a person is not a one-time occurrence."

Temperance said nothing, suddenly taking a remarkable interest in her fingernails.

"Are you alright, Temperance?" The somber tone in his voice made her look up. He knew, he had to at least suspect, that something had happened. She didn't like to lie.

"I'm fine."

"Do you need anything?" Just for my parents to return, she thought cynically. She wished that she could go back to the Geary home, it was nice there. No violence, no neglect, no surprises. She missed that. But it looked like such a home was the exception rather than the rule.

"I would like to see a doctor," she said evenly. "Nothing special, just a routine check-up, but I'm overdue."

"A doctor?"

"Yes. I've read the paperwork, I know that I am entitled to medical, dental, and psychological care when necessary."

"Why is this visit necessary?" Temperance said nothing. She looked down, admonishing her fingernails for not growing evenly. "Has something happened?" The teenager looked her social worker in the face.

"Yes," she said with as much calm as she could muster. "I was sexually assaulted at the McAllister home, and I would like to be tested for pregnancy and STDs."

For a moment, Arthur didn't say anything, he just nodded, his face devoid of reaction. They're trained to be this way, she thought, trained not to react in the face of a crisis. Then he made a note on a Post-it on his desk.

"Why on earth didn't you say anything while you were in the home?"

"My calls were monitored." Which is also a violation of my rights as a foster child, she thought, but she said nothing. She knew better for next time. "So when can I see a doctor?" Arthur cleared his throat.

"We have a pediatrician that we partner with just down the block," he told her. "Generally, with such traumatic experiences, we relocate the child to a group home where the staff are specially trained to help traumatized youth."

"Group home, like an orphanage?"

"No, group home, as in, run by a handful of live-in, professional staff members. No more than 20 kids in each home. Not as much of a family experience, but I believe that it would help you out, at least for the short term."

"Okay," Temperance nodded, "But only if I can see a doctor. Can I stay in the group home until the school year ends, so I can finish 10th grade?" Arthur smiled.

"I'll do everything I can to make sure that happens."

She wanted to believe him.

* * *

"My doctor's appointment was the following day, and instead of a simple check-up the physician insisted on doing a full pelvic exam. A rape kit was useless at that point, all of the evidence would have disappeared as my body healed from the assaults. There had been tearing in the vaginal wall, of course, but it healed with no long-term effects.

"The bastard had given me Chlamydia, but all it took was a seven-day course of antibiotics to get rid of it. I didn't have any symptoms, and the pregnancy tests had been negative. No lasting damage. The doctors told me that I was lucky," she said, her face darkening.

"I was transferred into a group home for the two weeks until the end of the school year in that district, just as Arthur had promised. It was an all-girls home, run by two sisters, the Willises, who were trained in trauma counseling for sexual assault. Even though they ran the home, I was still mandated to attend four sessions of psychotherapy."

"Bet you loved that," Booth chuckled beside her. She smiled wryly.

"I didn't speak for the first three sessions," she told him. "I sat there, angry and trying not to show it, irritated with him telling me exactly what I was supposed to be feeling without looking at all of the evidence. He was breaking me down, taking bits of my life out of context and spinning this tale of the person he thought that I should be. I wasn't partial to psychology before that encounter, but Maeckner completely turned me off to any sort of psychoanalysis.

"He did make one suggestion, though; he suggested that I take up some sort of physical activity in order to channel any excess aggression that I had built up and to give myself a sense of empowerment. He suggested martial arts, but that cost money, and I had nothing. So I started running instead."

Brennan set her mug back onto the coffee table for a moment, leaning down and pulling the cardboard box toward her several inches. She fished through it and eventually withdrew her hand, now clutching the loop of large, glass beads, each in a different color. She held it, running her fingers over the smooth glass of each of the twelve beads.

"Gwen and Tia Willis made these for each of the young women in their care, for whatever period of time. They would tell us to take the loop each morning and sit with it. Our task was to think of a dozen things, one for each glass bead, that we treasured in ourselves."

"That home was one of the easier ones for me to live in, because aside from the psychotherapy sessions I wasn't forced to talk. I was allowed to be a, what do you call it?"

"A wallflower," Booth offered, accepting the small circle of glass beads from Brennan and holding onto it absentmindedly, still focusing on her story.

"Right. I went to school, studied hard, and hardly spoke to anyone. My teachers would ask me if I was okay, and I would nod. My grades were good; they had no reason to complain. I went 6 days without speaking while I was there. It was easier that way."

"Yeah," Booth said sympathetically, handing the beads back to Brennan. "I understand that."

She leaned over to put the beads back into the box gently, and a photograph caught her eye. A smile flickered across her face as she withdrew the picture and leaned up into the back of the couch again.

"What'cha got there, Bones?" Brennan held out the photograph for him to see. He took it from her and smiled. "Cute kid," he said earnestly. "Who is she?"

The girl in the photo was about seven or eight, with fair skin, delicate features, and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her flaming red hair, held back with a thin white headband, fell below her shoulders, her light brown eyes sparkled as she smiled, and her head was tilted slightly, her chin in her hand.

"Her name was Ashley Annatto. I met her at the Willis house, and she had just come into the system. Her parents were missionaries, and they were killed by the LRA in Uganda just a month before I met her. She kind of imprinted on me, didn't stop chattering even though I never spoke to her, followed me everywhere. After about a week, she grew on me; such a sweet little girl, I didn't want her to go through what I went through. But then—"

"—You had to leave, right?" Booth asked quietly, handing the photograph back to his partner. She nodded.

"Yes. I had to leave."

* * *

Hope you enjoyed it, thanks for reading!

Keep on reviewing! They totally make my day and motivate me to keep on writing.

However, although I appreciate the reviews, please stop suggesting things. I work a chapter ahead (meaning that by the time this is posted, I'll already have chapter 5 written), and I've had the plotlines of this fic planned since before I even started writing chapter one. So you may have suggestions, but they aren't going to influence the future plotlines of the story in any way.

See you again for Chapter 5!

Liria


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Growing Upside Down -- Chapter 5

* * *

"You _can't_ leave me!" The little girl cried, throwing her hands around Temperance's waist.

"I have to," she said, a feeling of guilt squeezing her insides tighter than seven-year-old Ashley Annatto could have. "I'm so sorry, Ashley. I can't stop this from happening."

"Can I stop it from happening?" she asked tearfully, looking up at Temperance. She shook her head.

"No, sweetheart, there's nothing either of us can do."

"But you're the only person I've got left," she sobbed, looking stricken. Tempe's heart broke, thinking about how this girl had grown impossibly close to her in the two weeks that they'd known each other.

"I know, I don't have anyone else either," she said, kneeling so that she was eye-level with the red-haired girl. "Listen, Ashley, I know this is really hard, but you have to be tough, okay? You'll be alright, and we might even see each other again." She forced a smile.

"Temperance, it's time to leave," Marla, her social worker, said firmly from the next room. Temperance hugged the little girl tightly and stood, leaving Ashley's light-brown eyes brimming with anxiety and tears.

"No!" Ashley said firmly, barreling into Temperance's legs and again throwing her arms around her waist, successfully preventing her departure. Marla had stepped into the hallway now, face set in irritation, and Gwen Willis was looking on with sympathy from behind them.

"Ashley, I have to leave."

"Please don't."

"Let go of her, little girl, Temperance is going now."

"Please!"

"Come on, sweetie," Temperance said as soothingly as she could, stroking the top of the child's head, "I need to go now. I'm so sorry." But her vicelike grip was strong, the girl's arms clamped around her middle.

"Ashley, honey, you have to let Temperance go now." Gwen stepped forward, gently working Ashley's arms free. Finally, the little girl's resolve weakened and she dropped to the ground, drawing her knees to her chest and crying, her copper hair covering her face.

Temperance made a move to comfort her, but Marla took her by the shoulder and led her away. Gwen's eyes met hers in a good-bye look, and then she was out the front door and back into the little red Maxima.

This needed to stop, she thought, because she was doing unnecessary emotional damage to the people around her simply by making friends; she would just leave in the end, that's what happened in the system. They give you a chance to root yourself in a new place and then, without warning, you get uprooted and have to start all over again.

She was inadvertently hurting people the same way that her family had hurt her.

* * *

When the car stopped again, it was in front of a row of what looked like apartment buildings. The warm June sun made her squint as she gathered up her knapsack and duffel bag. Marla led her up the sidewalk and up a short flight of steep stairs to one of the brick buildings and rang the doorbell. A corner of the curtain at the thin window near the door was lifted back, and a child's face appeared for a moment before the curtain dropped again.

The navy blue door swung open and a kind-faced woman with long, dark, curly hair appeared.

"Well hello," she said warmly, stepping aside and allowing them entrance. "You must be Temperance. Come in, come in." Temperance stepped into the welcome relief of air conditioning and allowed Marla to pass her as the woman closed the door behind the social worker.

The house wasn't bright, but it had a cozy feeling. She could hear children running and laughing above her. The walls were a simple ivory and the carpet, a shade of navy blue that matched the front door perfectly.

"My name is Carol Cappadocia," she said, shaking Temperance's hand. "Welcome to our home, dear. You have her file?" Marla nodded, handing her the record of Temperance's time in foster care which was, she thought bitterly, getting thicker by the month.

"Alright, then," Marla said in a falsely cheerful voice. "Hopefully it'll be a while before we meet again, Miss Brennan." Temperance said nothing, only watched, her face expressionless, as the social worker tottered down the steep steps in her pumps.

"Here, dear, I can take that," Carol said, offering to take her duffel bag. Temperance, still wary, pulled the duffel bag closer to her own body. It was precious, she thought; it was a sign that she wasn't fully a foster child. She didn't have to pack her things into garbage bags, and that was one bit of dignity that she would hold onto as long as she could. Carol's face fell a bit at the action, but it didn't seem to faze her too much.

Carol kindly took her through the house, which was small, but tall, as with most of the buildings in Chicago. There was a basement, which doubled as the den and playroom, complete with television and several storage bins of miscellaneous toys and games. A half-dozen tables and desks were set up there, too, and she supposed that this was where many of the kids would do their homework. She was glad to see that there were also shelves with dozens of books for all ages and reading levels, as well as a hodge-podge of chairs and sofas on which to sit and read them. The main floor housed the kitchen and dining area, as well as the Cappadocia's bedroom and office.

They found Tony Cappadocia on the second floor fixing the hinge on one of the bedroom doors. He was a cheerful-looking man, muscular, with a thick mustache and dark hair that had receded to produce a shiny bald patch at the back of his head.

But she was wary. He was a grown man, and though he seemed likeable so far, she still withdrew her hand from his almost immediately after she touched it to shake hands. He didn't seem surprised by this; this couple had run this home for twelve years, she would later learn.

"We have 15 children with us right now, though we can host 16. At the moment, there are 8 girls and 7 boys here. Most of them are out for the afternoon, though, because the Cubs are having one of their free kid's games. Anyway, the girls are on this floor, and the boys are all upstairs on the third floor. There are two to a room, and the bathroom is at the end of the hall. You'll be rooming with Graciela there, the second door on the left."

The room was simple and functional, the walls painted a soft shade of lilac and the carpet the same shade of blue that ran through the rest of the house. There were two beds, one was unmade, with a few photographs and a small poster of a band that she'd never heard of mounted on the walls with sticky putty. The other bed was already made up with white sheets and a thick ivory blanket, which she doubted that she'd need at this time in the summer. There was a closet here, too, and two sets of dresser drawers.

"Thank you," Temperance said kindly, and Carol smiled kindly at her.

"You are quite welcome. I'll be around here somewhere if you need anything, and dinner is at six. If you'd like to venture out, you may, but please use the sign-out sheet by the front door to let us know what time you left, where you went, and what time you'll be getting back. And feel free to introduce yourself to the other kids."

Temperance nodded that she understood and quickly unpacked her things which, as it turned out, didn't take long. After storing her duffel bag under her bed, she slipped her running sneakers on and found her way back down to the front door. There was no point in staying here if everyone was already gone, and because it was summer, her usual diversion of schoolwork was gone. She signed out using the clipboard by the front door and disappeared into the bright sunshine.

The house, it turned out, was situated in downtown Chicago, two blocks away from Washington Park and three from a branch of the Chicago Public Library. The University of Chicago was just on the other side of the park, and Lake Michigan was 17 blocks away. It was a massive city, she realized as she was running. She'd been here every once in a while with her family, but the Brennans had mostly kept to the suburbs.

She returned to the house at 5:30 and let herself in with the key that the couple kept hidden behind a loose brick in the exterior of the house. Re-stowing the key, she pushed open the door and an earful of chatter met her; it seemed that the others had returned from the baseball game. When she got back to her room, she found that she wasn't alone.

"Hey," she said, slipping off her shoes. "Are you Graciela?" The girl nodded.

"Yeah, you must be Temperance, right? And nobody calls me Graciela. It's Chela. At least, that's what my family has called me since I was little."

She wanted to point out to this girl that her family wasn't there with her, but she found she couldn't. Instead, she sat on her own bed and straightened her ponytail. Graciela lay on her stomach reading a book, her long, sleek black hair cascading down her back and dropping onto the bed. The girl's clothes were patched and faded, and her jeans were two inches too short for her.

"How old are you?" Temperance asked, crossing her legs on the bed. The girl looked up, her inky black eyes boring into hers, as if trying to judge her character. At last, she tucked her book away and sat straight up on the bed.

"I turn 15 at the end of July. Hopefully I can find a way to get me and Fede, my brother, back to our family by then."

"What happened to your family?"

"They got caught," she said simply. "They came up from Guatemala years ago, fled the civil war with my two older brothers. But someone at my Papi's job had his record analyzed. My parents and my two older brothers got deported, but me and Fede were born here, so they kept us. All our family is back in Guatemala, so we got chucked into the system."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Temperance told her, and she meant it. The dark-skinned girl just shrugged her shoulders, readjusting the shoulder strap of her tank top. Just then, a voice echoed through the hallway.

"DINNERTIME!" a young boy shouted, and Temperance and Graciela made their way down the clean, ivory-walled hallway, downstairs, and into the kitchen.

Over a meal of hot dogs, French fries and cooked carrots, Temperance met the rest of the children in the house. There was Federico, Graciela's brother, sitting next to Peter, Jennifer, and Mark Salyer. Jake, who was 16 with a tall, dark Mohawk, gave Temperance a small smile. Carol went around the table and introduced Jessie, Sarah, Jerome, Jasmine, Brittany, Zack, Ben, Lisa, and Lamar. The youngest child, Ben, was a baby; Jake, at 16, was the oldest.

* * *

"Wow," Booth said, wide-eyed. "That's a lot of kids in one house."

"Yes, it was overwhelming," Brennan told him, setting her empty mug back down on the coffee table. "But I liked it there. Of course, we had chores every day, but I had so much freedom! As long as I signed out first, I could go anywhere in Chicago as long as I was back for meal preparation if it was my chore, and in the house by curfew at ten. There was so much to do, so many possibilities."

"So, in the infinity of choices," Booth said, raising an eyebrow playfully, "what did you do?" Brennan laughed, smiling.

"I helped out a little with the younger kids at the house, did what I was asked. Graciela and I became friends, as much as we could be in the system, anyway, and she taught me to speak a little Spanish. And I spent quite a lot of time at the library."

"Of course you did."

"Why do you sound disappointed?" Brennan asked him, a tiny crease developing between her eyebrows as she furrowed her brow.

"Well, I thought maybe you'd have gotten into a little trouble. I would have, given freedom as a teenager. I did, as a matter of fact," he admitted, chuckling. Brennan shook her head in disbelief, a corner of her lip still upturned.

"I've told you already, Booth," she said, "I never did anything bad before our 'dine and dash' at the Founding Fathers." She grinned mischievously, and Booth tried to hide his grin. "What?"

"Nothing, Bones."

"I know that look," she said, raising her eyebrows inquisitively. "That look is not nothing."

"Don't worry about it. So tell me about that summer."

* * *

Temperance pulled open the heavy door and relished the wave of cool air that enveloped her, a welcome relief from the suffocating humidity outside. The heat was stifling even though it was only 9am.

It was June 21, her 16th birthday.

She blinked, eyes adjusting to being indoors. It was an old library, with dozens of wooden tables, chairs, and lighted private desks carefully arranged on the main floor. The extensive stacks of books were crammed into the entire second floor of the library and every available spare bit of space on the main floor. A dozen computers stood on tables against the back wall.

She had been in here almost every day for the past week, doing research. She made her way across the room to her usual table and set her heavy bookbag down carefully. Sitting and turning on the reading lamp at the desk, Temperance pulled her hair out of her face and into a ponytail with the elastic around her wrist and undid the zipper on her bag in order to remove a simple notebook and a large volume.

The notebook had recently become one of her most prized possessions. Most teenage girls guarded their innermost thoughts within the pages of a journal, but for Temperance Brennan, this carefully kept black-and-white composition book held more than just her thoughts. It had been a gift from the Willis sisters, who knew that having an outlet for difficult and complex thoughts and feelings was terribly important.

This notebook held detailed notes that she had been gathering at her time in the library over the past week; it was everything that she needed to get out of this system as soon as possible. The first pages held detailed notes about her rights as a ward of the state, the process of emancipation, and another half-dozen pages were packed, in Temperance's neat handwriting, with information on the process of applying to college.

If she could only get through this school year with a few extra classes, she would have just enough credit to graduate from high school a year early, and as long as she had a plan for her future, for college, she would be able to plea for emancipation from the foster care system. With any luck, she could be heading off to a university somewhere in just over a year. The possibility sent a chill of excitement through her body. But first, she had to begin the process of applying to schools.

She flipped through the notebook to a different page, the one with the words _Scholastic Achievement Test_ written in careful script at the top, and exhaled sharply. The SAT was her first step in a way out, her first step to college and emancipation from the foster care system, and she was determined to try her damnedest to get there. But there was a snag, a notation at the bottom of the page: _Find out ASAP how to sign up for the test_.

One of the librarians, Mrs. Sally Powell, had been watching the teenager with interest over the rims of her reading glasses. The girl was conundrum; she looked like a street kid, but she certainly didn't act like one. Her jeans appeared to be too short for her—she had to fold the bottoms up to look like capris, and she had the tall, wiry frame of someone who had just grown a lot in a short amount of time.

The girl looked frustrated, her brow furrowed. More out of curiosity than anything else, Mrs. Powell left her post at the front desk and made her way over to the girl. Temperance looked up at once at the sound of the librarian's footsteps to see the elderly woman smiling kindly at her.

"Are you finding everything alright?" Temperance opened her mouth, about to say that if she wanted help, she'd ask for it, but the starred note in her notebook stopped her.

"How do I register for the SAT?" The librarian smiled at her.

"Come with me, dear," she said, heading toward her computer. Several key clicks later, Temperance was leaning on the counter across from the librarian. "So tell me, when would you want to take the test?"

"As soon as possible, please." More clicks at the keyboard, and the librarian scrutinized the words on the screen.

"Well, let's see here… there's a testing date one week from tomorrow, but there's an extra fee for early registration."

"And when's the soonest I can take the test without being charged the extra fee?"

"Not until August." Temperance shook her head, her eyebrows furrowing with worry.

"What's the fee?"

"The test totals $40 with the late registration fee." Temperance bit her lip. She didn't have two cents to rub together. Unless she could find some way to get a job, or some spare cash… But foster kids couldn't hold onto jobs. Nobody wanted to hire a street kid. She shook her head in disappointment.

"Is there some kind of fee waiver for kids of low-income families?" The librarian looked at her sadly.

"There is, but there is no waiver for the extra fee. Do you have the $15 for the registration?"

"No," she said softly. "I don't. I don't have any money at all."

"What about your parents? Surely they can lend you money for the test?"

"I—that's not a possibility." She looked down at the glossy polished surface of the wooden counter, tracing the grain of the wood with a finger, brain whirring, trying to figure something else out.

"Tell you what," the librarian said kindly, "You come here and fill out your information, and I will front the money. My son owns a used bookstore and has been having trouble keeping employees. How about I give him a call and send you over? You can pay me back when you've got the money?"

Temperance was speechless. She couldn't believe that this woman, this stranger, would want to help her out so much. She stuttered a thank-you and registered for the test, printing out a confirmation slip while Mrs. Powell called her son.

"Well, there you go," she said, handing Temperance a slip of paper with an address to a place called Broken Binding Books and a name, Stephen Powell, written in loopy handwriting. "He's expecting you this afternoon at 1:30. Does that work for you?"

Still in a daze, Temperance nodded. She hurriedly stuffed her belongings back into her knapsack, careful not to crush her confirmation slip for the SAT, and headed back to the Cappadocia house to help prepare lunch.

After a hectic meal of chicken patty sandwiches, Temperance grabbed her backpack again and headed for the door. As she was signing out, though, she felt a hand on her shoulder and, turning quickly and recoiling from the touch, she saw Carol bouncing the baby on her hip.

"You're out of the house an awful lot," she said matter-of-factly.

"That is correct."

"Where have you been going?"

"The library."

"Really?"

"Of course, it's on all of my sign-out sheets, and one of the librarians can even vouch for me." Carol sighed.

"Okay, Temperance," she said, sounding like she didn't quiet believe her, "just stay out of trouble." Nodding, Temperance adjusted her knapsack over her shoulder and left the house to find the bookstore.

After 14 blocks, she finally came to the outside of a little shop with a small, antique-looking plaque hanging above the storefront window reading 'Broken Binding Books' and stopped short. Checking her watch, she saw that it was nearly 1:30, so she pulled the door to the shop open.

A bell above the door tinkled and the man looked up from behind the counter.

"Good afternoon," he said. "Are you Temperance?" When she nodded, he smiled and stepped out from behind the counter to shake her hand. "Well, then, I hear that you are quite a fan of reading. I'm glad to have found such an enthusiast to help out around here."

Stephen Powell was a quiet, kind man with a true appreciation for knowledge. He showed Temperance around the shop, and then she was put to work dusting the shelves and sweeping the floors. Before they knew it, it was time for the shop to close and time for Temperance to head home.

"Well, Temperance, you've been a great help," he told her. "You've just about earned enough to repay my mother, but if you're looking to make a little cash under the table, I could really use some help sorting through my new acquisitions. What time are you free tomorrow?"

It would be nice, she thought, to have a little extra cash, maybe buy a pair of jeans that wasn't two inches too short for her, or at least pay for printing and postage on college applications without having to ask her foster parents for money.

"Off the books?" she asked, using the expression for the first time since she had learned it from her mother, a bookkeeper.

"Off the books."

"Tomorrow, I'm free from 8-11am and then 2-5pm."

"Great," Stephen smiled. "I'll see you tomorrow."

That night at dinner, Temperance got a surprise: Carol and some of the other kids had baked her a birthday cake. For a moment, as she sat at the table with a chocolate-frosted cake illuminated by 16 candles, she didn't feel alone.

That week was a busy one for Temperance Brennan. While she wasn't working at the bookstore for Stephen Powell, she was sprawled out on her bed at the Cappadocia home with a myriad of SAT preparatory books that she had borrowed from the library. With her working so much at the bookshop, she thought it best to spend more time inside of the house, within eyeshot of everyone else in the house.

Still, though, nobody ever questioned what she was studying in the middle of the summer. She doubted that anyone cared enough to ask.

* * *

That's all she wrote, for now.

Again and again, I'll keep on saying it: You all make my life with your reviews. So keep on clicking that little blue link, even if you reviewed the last chapter.

Later, gators!

Liria


	6. Chapter 6

* * *

Growing Upside Down -- Chapter 6

* * *

Temperance bolted through Washington Park, running as fast as she could.

She was late.

Her bookbag was bouncing painfully on her back, and she narrowly missed a collision with a middle-aged man walking a dog, but she ignored them and pushed on, breathing hard.

Yesterday, when Carol had told her that her social worker would be meeting her today to meet with a potential family, her stomach had nearly hit the floor. She liked living in the group home as much as a foster child could like living anywhere in the system, and she had taken precautions to not become attached to anyone there, so that it would be easier to leave.

But she was scheduled to take the SAT the same day.

So she had nodded, careful to keep her expression detached, and packed her things. Her test began at 8am, and so that morning she had signed out with a note to Carol: _Be back at 12:30._ She was supposed to meet the social worker at noon, but she couldn't leave the testing site 26 blocks away before then.

So she ran, heart pounding in her chest, pushing through to the edge of the park, across the street, around the corner and, finally, up the stairs to the Cappadocia home, where she flung open the door, breathing heavily, and skidded to a stop in the entryway.

Marla was not impressed, but would not hear her excuses. So Temperance bolted upstairs, grabbed her duffel, and returned to the entryway. With a hurried goodbye to Carol, she was back in the front seat of the little red car, still trying to catch her breath.

"Where are we going?"

"You," Marla half-snarled, clearly very irritated with Temperance's tardiness. "Are going to meet a family who is interested in taking you in, and another foster child that the couple is considering fostering. As long as you are on your best behavior, and you agree with the couple and the other child, you'll be going home with them."

_On your best behavior?_ Temperance rolled her eyes at the windowpane. What was she, a toddler? Her gaze drifted up to the sky, where the rolling white clouds had blocked out the sun, but did not seem to threaten rain. The car slowed to make a turn and she noticed, with a smile, that they were passing the Broken Bindings bookstore.

It had been such a great little place to work, and Stephen had taken a liking to her. She wasn't quite sure how, but she knew Stephen suspected that she was a foster child, yet he treated her with respect and kindness. Because she was never sure when she would be pulled out of the Cappadocia home and relocated, she had asked Stephen to pay her at the end of each work day, and he had obliged. He was generous, and paid her just over minimum wage for her work at the shop, allowing her to earn just under $190 total, which she divided evenly between neatly-torn rips in the linings in both her knapsack and her duffel bag.

She never got to tell him thank you. But the shop slipped past as the car continued on down the street.

Twenty minutes of Marla driving fast in order to make up for lost time found them at a small Italian restaurant on the outskirts of the city. Marla led the way into the restaurant, with Temperance trailing a few feet behind, straightening her ponytail absentmindedly as they went inside and Marla began to skim the faces of the people that they were meeting.

It turned out, though, that it wasn't necessary, because at that moment the sound of her own name made her spin around.

"Tempe! Tempe!" Temperance turned in the moderately-lit restaurant to catch a glimpse of a little girl with flaming red hair just before she ran smack into her legs and squeezed her tightly around the waist. Before she could stop herself, Temperance's face broke into a wide smile.

"Ashley, wow," she said with disbelief laced into her voice. "How are you doing, sweetheart? What are you doing here?"

"Waiting for you! Guess what? We got placed in the same home! Like sisters, right?" The little girl loosened her hold on Temperance enough to look up at her with wide, sparkling brown eyes. She noticed that Ashley had lost a tooth since they'd last seen each other; the gap was visible behind her smile. Temperance nodded.

"Yeah," she said, finding herself forcing a smile as her heart sank lower into her chest. "Like sisters."

"Oh, you two know each other already?" Marla asked, leading both of them to a table near the back, where three people were already seated.

"Yes, you had to pry her off of me before you pulled me out of the Willis home," Temperance said. "Don't you remember?" Marla narrowed her eyes and said nothing, but was quick to don a smile when she noticed that the other adults were watching them carefully.

Derek and Heidi Haegerman were a jovial couple in their mid 40's. Derek had a full head of wavy brown hair, rosy cheeks and a pot-belly; if Temperance hadn't known better, she would have said that he looked like a very young version of Santa Claus. Heidi, like Derek, was quite overweight, but unlike her husband her cheeks were paler and her kind, round face resembled an otter's.

The lunch was as pleasant as any of them could have hoped; with the adults carrying on a conversation brimming with forced pleasantness and trying to pull Temperance and Ashley into the discussion. Ashley squirmed a little in her chair where she sat beside Temperance, seemingly torn between chattering happily and not wanting to speak at all.

When the check was paid and the social workers left, the Haegermans loaded the girls' things in to their silver Camry and the four of them pulled out of the parking lot. Soon after they left, the sky opened and the rain began to fall in large, heavy drops, spattering loudly on the windshield of the car, drowning out the oldies playing on the radio and any chance of conversation. They drove for only half an hour before pulling up in front of a small two-story house with ivory siding and deep green shutters.

Derek pulled the car into the garage beside another car, this one a navy blue Corolla, and an unfamiliar quiet swept over them as the rain was left outside. Heidi turned in her seat to look at the two girls in the back and smiled.

"Here we are," she said, "home sweet home."

Temperance stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She'd heard it before. Whether this home actually would work out, she didn't know, but it was statistically unlikely. Looking over at the girl beside her, she saw that there was a small look of hope on Ashley's face.

This was only her second home. She had no idea, not just yet, of what could happen in this system. She was so innocent, and she still believed that adults were good and kind and only looking out for her best interests.

But Temperance couldn't bring herself to shatter that perception.

She listened absentmindedly as she gathered her bags and Derek carried Ashley's garbage bags. The house was small, but nice, with coordinated hunter-green and ivory plaid living room furniture, Berber carpet, an office area with a computer, and a kitchen with a breakfast island. On the second floor, Heidi pushed open one of the doors to reveal the room that the two girls would be sharing. It looked as though it had once been a boys' room, decorated in navy blues with nautical-themed wallpaper. There was a chest of drawers and a desk, along with a roomy closet with plenty of hangers. The bunk beds were made with matching blue comforters. A handful of clothing items still remained in the closet, and trinkets from a previous occupant were perched atop the shelves and the dresser.

"This room belonged to our son Jeffrey. He's a second-year off at Illinois State, got a summer job up at the school this year, so you get his room. We've got two other sons, Dan and Scott. They're 12 and 13, in middle school this fall, and they're both off at baseball camp for a couple more weeks."

Temperance nodded, dropping her bags on the floor beside the beds. Derek put Ashley's bags beside hers, smiling at them. Temperance didn't smile back; she couldn't just yet. There was a pregnant, awkward pause as the four of them stood, staring at each other. Finally, Derek put his arm around Heidi's shoulders.

"Well, we'll let you young ladies unpack your things. Just come downstairs when you're ready, and we can go over some things."

With that, they turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind them. As if she wasn't quite sure what to do, Ashley turned and looked at her inquisitively. Temperance smiled as best as she could.

"So," she asked, "do you want bottom or top bunk?"

* * *

It turned out that the Haegermans had quite a few rules. There were the usual ones, like not watching TV without permission, taking shoes off in the house, following the 10pm curfew, and doing chores when asked. There seemed to be a lot of chores.

Nevertheless, the home seemed like a good one. Heidi described Vernon Hills as a large small town, in which, on any given day, half of the people you met at the supermarket were people that you knew. The high school, Campbell High, was a conglomeration of three separate towns the size of Vernon Hills, and she would go with Temperance later that week to register with the school district. Ashley would be attending Indian Valley Elementary, starting in the second grade.

Heidi and Derek explained all of this to them over dinner that evening. After the meal was over, and Heidi showed the two girls how to wash, dry, and put away the dishes, the summer sun had hardly begun to set. Temperance checked her watch: 7:05. She had plenty of time for a good run before their curfew, and though she had qualms about leaving Ashley there by herself, she needed to take some time alone.

After getting permission from Heidi and Derek, who were in the living room watching Wheel of Fortune on television, Temperance happily pulled on her running shorts and shoes and, carefully memorizing the home address, was off down the street.

This was wonderful, she thought with contentment. Feeling the breeze at her cheeks, the steady rhythm of her shoes hitting the pavement, the absolute freedom that she found in controlling her speed and direction with complete independence, her ability to observe as much or as little of the scenery as she wanted.

This was what she loved, being unbridled and free.

Rounding a corner, she passed a number of well-manicured houses and pristine green lawns, private homes and small businesses on the same streets. She ran past three churches and a department store and even the elementary school that Ashley would be attending, which had a lovely, well-maintained playground. Down the street further was a public park, complete with playground equipment and mouths to two running trails.

After an hour or so, she returned to the Haegerman home to shower, finding that Ashley was already in her pajamas. At 9:00, when the sky had finally darkened, Ashley crawled up into the top bunk bed to sleep. Temperance, who was seated at the desk drafting an essay in her notebook, flipped on the desk lamp and turned off the light in the room in order to allow the child to sleep.

"Tempe?" came her voice quietly through the semi-darkness.

"Yes?"

"I'm glad that you're here with me." Temperance turned her head, just barely making out part of the little girl's face silhouetted in the half-light, and she gave a small smile.

"Me, too."

* * *

The next two weeks were spent settling into a routine of morning chores, lazy summer afternoons, and evenings that were, for Temperance, spent outlining and drafting and rewriting college application essays that had begun arriving in the mail for her. She had sent for several of them only three days after arriving at the house, and as bringing in the mail was one of her chores, nobody in the house suspected that she was applying to college by night.

The Haegermans had never been foster parents before, and it was obvious that they were learning, too. Heidi had even taken note that both girls were wearing clothes that seemed to be growing small and, one afternoon, she took them to the local thrift store and purchased four T-shirts and two pairs of jeans for each girl. It wasn't much, but it was a decent gesture from where Temperance stood.

In mid-July, the Haegerman's sons returned from their sports camp. Scott and Dan were both dark-haired, with a smattering of freckles across their noses that had sprouted from sun exposure. Both were chubby, but athletic, and while they immediately rose to the big brother role when it came to playing with Ashley, both seemed to be withdrawn from Temperance.

She found that, while she had no idea why the two middle-school boys seemed to be distancing themselves from her, she didn't mind and didn't feel the need to find out. Summer drew closer to its end that year with Ashley, Scott and Dan playing games with the rest of the neighbor kids, while Temperance spent a good amount of time running. She loved to run, and she had gotten to know the town in which she lived quite well through her runs.

The week before her first day at a new high school, she decided to turn up a street that she hadn't been down before. It was quaint, with lots of trees and a few small businesses. Her heart thumped in her chest and sweat began to form on her brow as she continued to jog down the street at a comfortable pace. The sidewalk here was uneven, parts pushed up by tree roots, and she maneuvered around the jutting bits of concrete.

But before she could fully process what was happening, she was falling forward, hard and fast. Her reflexes kicked in and her arms shot out in front of her to break her fall, but she hit the uneven, coarse pavement roughly with an 'oomph' that knocked her breath from her chest.

Temperance was back on her feet so quickly that she felt lightheaded, looking around to be sure that nobody had seen her fall. The streets, as expected, were devoid of life. She breathed a small sigh of relief before a sharp pain in her leg drew her attention back to her injuries. Looking down, she saw a stream of bright red blood trickling down her left leg, seeming to originate from a large scrape clear over her knee, and noticing the injury quickly caused the pain to intensify.

Groaning, she took in her surroundings. She had tripped outside of Grace United Methodist Church, a lovely building made out of dark gray blocks of stone and surrounded by a well-tended flowerbed. It was a Saturday evening, and she doubted that the church would be open, but the sooner she could rinse the wound with some soapy water, the better. So she straightened up and made her way up the gently sloping lawn to the side door of the church that connected to an asphalt parking lot adjacent to the building.

She was surprised to find the door propped open a few inches, and pushed her way inside as quietly as she could. It was dimmer here, and in taking a moment for her eyes to adjust to the change in light, something else about the church surprised her.

There was beautiful classical music emanating from a door to her right. Curiosity got the best of her and, taking a staggering step forward, she quietly pulled the heavy wooden door open.

The area of worship wasn't large; only two long columns of wooden pews provided seating to the congregation, and the floors were of a cool, white tile that was chipped in places from use. Wooden commemorations of the Stations of the Cross adorned the walls, which, for some reason, were painted a dusty rose color. The floor was raised at the far end of the room, and to one side of the altar area, a teenage boy was playing the piano.

The boy himself was slender with short, sandy brown hair that seemed to stick up at the front as if gelled. Temperance forgot the stabbing pain at her knee as she watched, mesmerized, as his fingers danced over the keys, his face calm and his eyes closed, as if the music was simply being channeled from the universe, through his arms and to his fingertips.

After a minute or so, the piano piece came to a close and, as if he could sense an unfamiliar presence, the boy lifted his hands from the keys and turned. Temperance froze, paralyzed by the pain in her leg and a strange awkwardness of being caught somewhere she shouldn't be. Startled, she turned to leave.

"Sorry," the boy said, almost shyly. Temperance stopped, turning to look at him over her shoulder. He was apologizing to her?

"I—I was just—"

"No, I mean, it's okay that you were listening," he said, standing and making his way toward her. He had a cautious look in his eyes, as if he thought that approaching her too quickly would cause her to scare and dash away. "I come here sometimes to, you know, practice. I accompany for some of the Sunday services."

Temperance could only nod, wanting to bolt and pretend that she had never been seen in this church, but the pain in her knee prevented her from doing so. Instead, she took a tentative, falsely confident step toward the teenager, but faltered at the fiery pain shooting from her leg. He saw and, following her betraying gaze toward her left leg, his eyes widened.

"Oh, wow," he said. "That must have hurt… Here, let me help you. Can you walk?"

"I got this far, didn't I?" she asserted, cocking her head slightly, the corner of her lip twitching upward into a grin. He smiled.

"Chris Peterson."

"Temperance Brennan."

"Wow," he said, helping to direct her through the wooden door and down a dimly lit hallway, "That's not a name you hear often. So tell me, Temperance, are you from around here?" She hobbled alongside him, refusing his help down the hallway toward the softly illuminated sign marking the women's restroom.

"No," she responded simply, no need to elaborate.

"So what brings you into town?" She paused, not quite wanting to answer that question. Thankfully, they had arrived at the ladies' room, and, one hand on the door, she excused herself to get cleaned up.

Blood was actively running down her leg, soaking into her sock even as she tried to staunch it, and a quick glance at the mirror told her that her face was very pale. She could tell she had lost a good bit of blood, and cleaning away some of the debris and dried blood from the wound, she saw that the cut was very deep, much deeper than she had anticipated.

Temperance groaned at the implications.

Pulling the bathroom door open, awkwardly bent over with a moist paper towel still pressed to her knee, she found Chris waiting for her in the hallway.

"I should go to the hospital," she told him brusquely. "I'll probably need stitches. What is the quickest way to get there from here?" Very much to her irritation and annoyance, the guy actually snorted.

"You're going to _walk_?" he asked incredulously, raising his eyebrows as if to tell her that the very notion was insane.

"I can't very well run."

"Well, no, but I have a car. Let me drive you." Temperance raised an eyebrow contemplatively. He reacted to her doubtful expression, saying quickly, "come on, you can trust me to drive you five minutes up the road." It was a means to an end, she thought, and, taking all of a microsecond to think it through, she nodded.

"Okay."

* * *

Alright, folks, that's chapter 6!

Again, thanks for your continued support in reading this story, and I look forward to hearing your feedback. What do you think?

Later, friends!

Liria


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

Growing Upside Down — Chapter 7

* * *

"What are you smiling at?"

"Nothing." But Brennan cocked her head and raised her eyebrows pointedly, shooting a look that told Booth quite clearly that she didn't believe him. After a moment under her gaze, he conceded. "It's just that this kid doesn't seem like any Andy Fluger. It's a good thing."

"He was nothing at all like Andy Fluger," she said with a soft smile.

"Awwww," Booth said, leaning playfully into Brennan's shoulder. "You had a little crush on him. That's cute, Bones."

"It was not a crush," she said quickly. "We shared a friendly rapport and mild feelings of sexual attraction."

"Whoa, I do not need to know that much."

"What? We were teenagers, and youth at that age experience extreme hormonal fluctuations as well as a number of radical changes that take place in the frontal lobe, it's completely normal. Besides, we never acted on them."

"So how did the family react to your being in the hospital?"

At this question, Booth saw his partner's face darken almost imperceptibly, but her expression faded so quickly that he was sure he had imagined it. In spite of himself, concern leapt to his face, but she only shrugged.

"Their reaction was minimal. I was worried at first about the cost of the hospital bill, but the state took care of everything. The physicians sutured the wound on my knee and gave me a brace for my right wrist because my scaphoid had been fractured when I tried to break my fall. The injury meant nothing more than a temporary end to my running, but school started a week later, and the workload was mostly successful in keeping me busy."

"Oh, only 'mostly' successful?" Booth teased, smirking at her playfully. Brennan rolled her eyes.

"Yes, although I was taking an increased course load in order to graduate early, I did not find the classes particularly challenging."

"Of course you didn't," he said in a tone of what sounded like endearment.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you are a genius, Bones, so I'm not surprised to hear that you didn't find the classes hard." They exchanged a smile, and Brennan pulled her legs out from under her, crossing one over the other in front of her. "And you were still able to apply to colleges on time?"

"Yes," she said, a note of accomplishment and satisfaction in her voice. "It wasn't easy, but I did. I sent out five applications by the end of September. Still, nobody knew. I was able to purchase the stamps and envelopes out of my wages from the bookstore, and I mailed the applications via a public mailbox two blocks away."

Booth fell silent, and Brennan looked over at her partner's face. He was grinning, shaking his head a fraction of an inch from side to side, as if in disbelief. She furrowed her brow, confused.

"What?"

"You are an amazing woman, Bones," he said, simply and with pride. She smiled gently, surprised to find that she couldn't think of a fitting response to such an incredible compliment.

Instead, she continued her story.

* * *

It turned out that Chris Peterson was a senior at Campbell High School, and therefore was in many of the same classes as Temperance. It was nice to have at least one familiar face, one person who would be kind to her in a sea of sneering and gossiping teenagers who all somehow seemed to know that she was a foster child. Chris had his own friends, of course, but he never neglected to give her a smile and a kind word before class began or when they passed in the hallway.

Aside from a select few of her teachers, Chris was one of the few students at the high school who had heard her speak. Temperance didn't volunteer answers in class anymore; she simply sat silently in the front of the class, feverishly took extremely detailed notes, and posed her questions to the teachers in the privacy of an empty classroom after everyone else had been dismissed.

She was hardly ever noticed, and that was okay with her.

As August rolled into September, everything seemed to be going as well as Temperance could have hoped under the circumstances. She found a friend in Chris, Ashley treated her more and more like a sister each day, and even the Haegerman's sons were warming to her presence.

That first week of September, though, something strange began to happen. Temperance and Ashley had faced a heavy load of household chores since they had arrived in the household, but recently, Heidi and Derek were beginning to threaten punishments. At first, the punishments had been innocent grounding, nothing harmful. But one evening when beating out the rugs in the house took longer than expected, Temperance was asked to continue trying to beat the dust out of the heavy rugs through dinnertime, as long as it took for the thick carpets to be clean. When she had replaced the rugs in the house, covered in a thin film of sweat and dirt, the last of the dinner plates had been cleaned and put away. Heidi had told her simply that no food remained, and that perhaps she would work more efficiently next time with this as a reminder. Stomach growling in protest, Temperance had finished her homework without complaint and lay in bed that night, listening to the hum of the ceiling fan and Ashley breathing deeply in the bed above hers, and she hoped that this wouldn't happen again.

But it had, twice more that week. When it was Ashley who was forbidden to come to the table for dinner, Temperance had begun plotting how to smuggle leftovers to the little girl when Derek spoke evenly from his place at the head of the table.

"If you try to go against our punishments," he said, looking her square in the eye, "And that includes stealing food that wasn't given to you, then you will find that both you and Ashley will not be eating breakfast in the morning, either."

Though she tried, she failed to find a way to feed the little girl, who had never had a meal withheld from her in her short life. After that incident, Temperance began to save things from the lunches that were packed for her, things like apples and granola bars, just in case. And on more than one occasion, she found herself pulling a piece of fruit from her backpack for her or Ashley to munch on when they were refused meals.

As the weeks passed, the punishments became stranger. Several things about this family were odd, one of which was that they always forewarned the girls of the repercussions of potential mistakes. For example, one evening in late September, Temperance returned from a run to find that Ashley was conspicuously absent from the house. The little girl had turned 8 only the week before, but that was still far too young to be out of the house alone.

She asked Heidi and Derek, who were watching a movie on television, where the child was. In response, Derek checked his watch and exchanged a look with his wife. Both nodded, and Heidi pushed herself up off of the sofa.

"It's been half an hour. Her time is up," Derek told her, and all Temperance could respond with was a clearly puzzled expression. She followed Heidi into the front hall where, to Temperance's surprise and mild horror, Heidi pulled open the door of the coat closet to reveal Ashley. She was hanging in the closet, a heavy-duty plastic coat hanger threaded through the back of the shirt she was wearing. A wadded-up t-shirt was tied around her mouth as a gag, her face had gone pale and there were tear tracks on her cheeks.

Heidi had lifted Ashley from the closet by the underarms, and the second her feet hit the ground she hurtled into Temperance, throwing her arms around her almost painfully. Temperance, bewildered, worked the hangar out from her t-shirt and undid the gag, handing both to Heidi without a word. Heidi simply turned around and headed back into the living room. Temperance put her hand between Ashley's shoulder blades and led her up the stairs and into their room, where both sat on her bed. The little girl seemed to be shaking through the roots of her vibrant red hair, though the color was slowly returning to her cheeks.

"What happened?"

"I messed up."

"What did you mess up?"

"The—the laundry," she said, drawing her knees up to her chest. "They warned me, they said that would happen if I messed up with the ironing. If I left any wrinkles, then I would get hung up in the closet. I tried," she said miserably, another tear running down her cheek, "but I guess there were wrinkles, and next thing I knew, I was in the closet." Another fat tear rolled down her face and dropped off of her chin as Temperance pulled her into another hug.

"It's alright," she said, not as confidently as she thought. "We'll just have to avoid making so many mistakes, right? Don't worry. Why don't you change into your PJ's and I'll read more of Little Women to you before you go to sleep."

But not making so many mistakes turned out to be much more difficult than Temperance had anticipated, and she should have realized that there would be trouble when Derek asked her to mow the lawn the following day after she had returned from a study session with Chris in the school's library.

"If that grass isn't cut even," Derek had told her as he gassed up the mower, "your appearance will reflect it. Don't screw up."

She had cut the grass in the yard before, and took careful measures to guide the lawnmower evenly across the sea of green. In the end, it didn't matter. Because Derek still found that she hadn't cut quite close enough to the back fence. It was uneven.

So that evening after dinner, Derek sat her down in the kitchen, and Heidi fetched a pair of kitchen shears, and Temperance steeled herself for what was coming. She was careful to keep her face impassive to emotion as the first snip came and a long lock of her brown hair slithered over her shoulder and dropped into her lap. She closed her eyes and kept her chin level and her head still until the scissors ceased.

That first look in a mirror was startling. Her hair was chopped roughly to varying lengths, the shortest being at her chin and the longest, near her shoulders. She hastily grabbed a pair of school scissors from her desk and spent an hour and a half evening it out as much as possible, but her hair looked awful. It was terribly short, now to her chin, and she dreaded the reactions of her peers at the high school the following day.

Temperance Brennan had always been teased. She was too gawky, too quiet, too awkward, too plain, too brainy, and that was before she had entered the system. Now, as a foster child, there were even more reasons for her to be teased, and she heard them all hurtling toward her like razors, each jeer and taunt cutting deeper and deeper into her until she simply stopped feeling them.

The next day was as bad as she thought it would be. Even the teens whom she had been certain didn't know that she existed hissed at her in passing in the hallways, in classrooms, even in the girls' bathroom.

For the first time in her life, she wished that she owned a hat.

She sat in the library during the lunch period, keen to be in an environment where talking was taboo during the time of day when gossip was most likely to fly. Temperance had always drawn a feeling of comfort and strength from books and knowledge, which, she supposed, was why libraries were her refuges. As she sat at a polished wooden table, pencil scratching out a lengthy solution to a calculus problem, half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich slid toward her on a napkin.

"Hey," she looked up to find Chris' warm eyes smiling at her as he took a seat in the chair across the table. "Thought you could use something to eat."

"If I had wanted something, I could have gotten it myself." Chris rolled his eyes, pulling her math book toward him and forcing her to look up from her homework, a small scowl on her face.

"Listen, Temperance, I'm not deaf. I hear them talking, and I know it's affecting you no matter how much you pretend that it isn't. I know you're a good runner, and I'm not just talking about the sport. I also know that the haircut was no accident, and that you didn't want it to happen. I've been really nice about not asking you what happened, so please just take the sandwich before the ostrich finds food around her precious books and kicks us both out of here." The ostrich, of course, referring to their librarian, Ms. Barri, whose overly long neck always seemed to stretch toward a book.

Temperance rolled her yes, set her pencil down, her jaw clenched.

"Fine," she said quietly. "The haircut was a punishment, courtesy of my foster parents."

"The Haegermans did that to you?" Chris asked in disbelief. "On _purpose_?"

"It was very much intentional, and I don't have access to the means to fix it."

Chris looked at her contemplatively, and she pulled the sandwich half toward her. She could always eat her own lunch later if she got hungry, and these days she was never quite sure how often she would eat dinner from week to week. She took a bite and chewed slowly.

"I can."

"You can what?" Temperance asked thickly, the peanut butter sticking in her mouth.

"Get your hair situation straightened out." He slid her math book back toward her, seemingly satisfied that she was eating. She swallowed.

"How?"

"My sister, remember?" Right, she remembered Chris telling her about his sister Rachel, who was 21 and had just finished cosmetology school. "She's living at home and is quite handy with sharp scissors. I'm sure she'd love the practice, and how much worse can the hair get, right?"

"It's really that bad?"

"I didn't say that," Chris said quickly, he cheeks beginning to redden.

"But you implied it." Chris opened his mouth to defend himself, but Temperance cut him off, pushing a short lock of hair behind her ear aggressively, as if the added force would encourage it to stay put. "I'll go."

"To my house?" It was said more as a statement than a question.

"Yeah." A wide grin spread across his face as the bell rang to signal the end of the period. Scooping her books into her knapsack, she hurriedly crammed the last of the sandwich into her mouth and the two of them parted ways to get to class.

* * *

"Okay, Temperance, did you have anything specific in mind?" Chris' sister, Rachel, slung a vinyl drape over Temperance's front and fastened it around the back of her neck. Rachel had the same green eyes as her brother, and the same sandy hair, though hers carried a fair number of highlights and lowlights that identified students of beauty school. Her haircut was short and chic, and she wore a purple tank top with overalls that were unbuckled at one shoulder. In short, she was _cool_.

"Um, if you could even it out, I guess?"

"Sure, no problem," Rachel said, smiling warmly. "Would you be opposed to color, highlights, or lowlights? And, dearest little bro, would you kindly scram?" Chris rolled his eyes and left the room, leaving Temperance in the chair and Rachel standing behind her with a very sharp pair of scissors.

And an hour later, Temperance looked in the mirror to find a drastic improvement. The haircut was a little edgier than she would have liked, with swoop bangs and an intentional choppy look at the back, though Rachel had kindly left as much of the length as she could.

"Wow, Rachel, thank you so much!" she said, happy that her hair no longer showed signs of having been hacked off by school-grade scissors. With a smile, she shook the young woman's hand. "I'd better get going. Do I owe you anything?"

"Nope, thanks for giving me practice. Christopher!" Rachel shouted, still sweeping up hair clippings from the floor of the family laundry room. "Your friend is leaving!"

Temperance grabbed her bookbag and jacket, but was headed off at the front door when Chris came bounding down the stairs. He faltered when he saw her, his jaw falling a fraction of an inch.

"Wow," he said.

"I know," she told him excitedly, "Your sister is really good!" She was puzzled when he raised an eyebrow, as if she had misunderstood something. "Thanks for letting me come here, but I should get going. They'll wonder where I've been."

Chris nodded and the two were soon climbing into his car. The drive back was too short, Temperance's mind racing through what would happen when the Haegerman family saw her new haircut, but when Chris pulled the car into the driveway and Heidi came out the front door to meet them, she was surprised to find that the woman didn't react at all.

"Oh, good, you're home," she said, placing her hand on Temperance's shoulder as she stepped out of the car and guided her up the driveway. Temperance threw her head over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of Chris' puzzled face before being led inside of the house. "You didn't tell me you were going somewhere after school today."

Temperance tried to pull herself free as they got through the front door and Heidi slammed it shut behind them, but the woman's grip was tight. Instead, she simply allowed herself to be led into the kitchen.

"Answer me!" Heidi demanded, her voice not elevated but carrying a dangerous tone.

"You didn't ask me anything."

"Don't you smart-mouth me, girl."

"I wasn't trying to, I just don't understand what I am supposed to tell you because you never actually asked me a question!" Temperance exclaimed, looking into Heidi's stony face with anger beginning to rise in her own, blue eyes alight with confusion. They stared at each other for a moment, color rising into Heidi's usually pallid face, while Temperance felt warmth rising into her cheeks. With a swift motion she tore her shoulder from beneath Heidi's grip, but her arm shot out and she grabbed Temperance's forearm painfully. It took a lot of effort not to wince as the perfectly manicured acrylic nails threatened to cut into her skin.

"I told you not to smart-mouth me," she hissed into her face, leaning in so close that Temperance could feel the woman's rancid breath brushing over her eyes. As Heidi dragged her into the garage, she didn't protest; she had no idea what kind of punishment was coming to her, but she knew that it would be far worse if she fought Heidi now. Or, worse, if Derek got ahold of her instead.

That was how Temperance found herself sitting at the dinner table that evening as the rest of the family ate, silenced by the thick, resolute piece of steel-gray duct tape covering her mouth. She watched the rest of them eat their lasagna and drink their milk, sitting straight in her chair, with Heidi and Derek leering at her. The two boys, who had learned not to question the punishments of either Ashley or Temperance without fear of being retaliated against themselves, were silent; Ashley, who knew all too well the consequences of speaking out, could do nothing but poke at her food and lean into Temperance's side comfortingly.

She stood to leave the table when the meal had finally ended, Heidi clearing the dishes and Derek running the dishwater in the sink.

"No, girl, you don't get to leave yet," Derek said, a slight sneer at his lips. "Come here and do the dishes."

Temperance obliged, shuffling quietly into place in front of the scalding water. This wasn't the first time she'd had to wash dishes for this family, and it most certainly wouldn't be the last. She hated lasagna; the burnt cheese and tomato sauce would be difficult to scrub off.

"Don't you break any of those dishes," he said evenly. "If you do, we're locking you away for a couple of days, see if we can't knock some sense into you."

Even with duct tape obscuring her features, terror and bewilderment were evident in her blue eyes. Regardless, she stepped forward and picked up the first dish. She blocked out as much of the pain from the scalding water as she could, but it was so hot, and with each dish it was more difficult to keep a solid grasp on the smooth, blue glass of the dinner plates.

She had one cleaned. Then two. Three complete.

But the water was so hot that her inflamed hands were losing feeling

The soap was too slippery for her to keep hold on the dishes.

The dish slid almost gracefully to the ground, as if in slow motion, and Temperance didn't even hear it shatter.

She stared, horrified, at the shattered glass. Time revved up again and she dropped to her knees, cutting her palm in a hasty effort to sweep up the broken glass. It was all in vain, stupid, really, she chided herself. They would have noticed eventually.

There was nothing she could do.

They had given her fair warning.

* * *

Again, HUGE thanks to all of you readers, even if you don't take the time to review. Of course, I really appreciate the feedback and support of those of you who do review. Thanks!!!

Until next time,

Liria.


	8. Chapter 8

* * *

Growing Upside Down -- Chapter 8

* * *

"Two days. I found out later, after I got out, that I had been in that trunk for two days. By the time I got out, most of the cuts and bruises that Derek had inflicted in the process of subduing me into the trunk had faded considerable. I don't even remember getting out of the car, but I vaguely remember waking up in my bed again, Ashley leaning over and poking me to make sure I was awake. She made me eat an apple and a sandwich that she had stashed away.

"The abrasions from the ropes were still clearly evident on my wrists, and it took some creativity to hide them from my teachers and my peers when I returned to school."

"Did anyone—" Booth started, his voice painstakingly steady despite the rage that welled within him that anybody could do something like this to someone as completely powerless as a foster child, to a young woman so full of promise, to her.

"Chris. He noticed that I was missing, and the first day he brought my homework. Heidi told him I was ill, and so he brought my schoolwork the following day as well. Ashley tried to tell someone," Brenna told Booth suddenly, as if it was a thought that had popped out of memory without warning. Her lips even hinted at a small smile as she tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear.

"What happened?"

"Well," Brennan said, sounding proud of the little girl. "She told her teacher one day that her foster parents had locked her sister in the trunk of the car in the garage." She and Booth shared a smile, and Booth knew why: Ashley had referred to Temperance as her sister, something that she'd never had before. Connections that strong were extremely rare in conditions provided by the foster care system.

"Oh?"

"Yes," Brennan nodded. "But she didn't believe her. The teacher knew that Ashley was a foster child, and she knew that the little girl didn't have any family, no siblings to speak of. She thought that she was only making up the story to get attention." Booth's face darkened again, and Brennan laid a comforting hand on his forearm. "I got out in the end, Booth."

"Did your foster family ever find out that Ashley had told the teacher about the abuse that they were putting you through?"

At this, a shadow of fury and grief flickered across his partner's face so quickly that he thought that, maybe, he had imagined it entirely. She gave a noncommittal jerk of the head.

"It—it wasn't just that incident," she told him. "Ashley was—was so young, and she hadn't acclimated to the callous, unforgiving nature of the system. After I was locked in the car, she started to act out more in school. She would snatch things, like unpeeled fruit or unopened juice boxes, from the surface of the garbage cans in the cafeteria when people weren't looking, just in case she was refused dinner at the house that night. She became inattentive and disruptive in class, and hyperactive at recess. One day, her teacher and the school nurse called a meeting with Derek and Heidi.

"She was acting out too much, they told them. She was unfocused, and the school nurse suggested that she had a form of Attention Deficit Disorder. At first, Derek was enraged, but then they found out that the more special-needs a child is, the more medication they receive, the more they would be compensated each month by the foster care system.

"That was all they needed to hear," Brennan continued bitterly. "They started drugging her with Ritalin just for the extra income. She didn't need the drugs, of course, and so she became lethargic, apathetic, and I hated watching it, so I told Ashley she should stop taking them. She never took the Ritalin from then on; she would hide the pills in her pants pockets when she went into the bathroom to take them, and then flush them down the toilet once she got to school.

"Because she ceased the Ritalin unbeknownst to our foster parents, they were puzzled, along with her teacher, as to her returning energetic behavior. She never caused much trouble, she was just rowdy."

"Which is understandable, considering what she had been through," Booth nodded in agreement.

"One day in November, Heidi got a call from the teacher. There was an agent from social services in the office with Ashley's teacher when Heidi got to the school for a meeting. It turned out that Ashley had continued to drop hints about her disadvantaged home life, and, at last, the teacher began to take her seriously. Heidi denied everything, of course, but then she reported the meeting to Derek when he got home. He was less than pleased.

"They punished her, of course, but since there was already suspicion, they couldn't risk leaving marks. So they made her scrub the upstairs bathroom with ammonia. They gave her gloves, but Derek held the door closed," Brennan said, her voice quivering. A tear rolled, unpermitted, down her cheek and she swatted at it with her right hand.

"_Please, please let me out. I promise I won't say anything again, I swear! PLEASE," Temperance could hear the little girl's sobs from their room across the hall, but she sat frozen at her desk, History textbook forgotten._

"_Not 'til that toilet sparkles brighter than Vanna's dresses. Keep scrubbing, kid. And don't you come out 'til you're sure it's clean enough, or you'll be in there all night. Maybe that'll get you to clean up your act at school." Ashley sobbed again. Both girls knew at this point that Derek's threats were always to be taken seriously. _

_Derek yelled at her every few minutes, just to make sure that she was still breathing, but it wasn't necessary. Ashley's strangled sobs and agonizing coughing fits could still be heard through the door until, at last, Derek released her after every second of an agonizing two hours had passed. _

_The ammonia was so acrid that it permeated the air and made Temperance's eyes water the moment Ashley stumbled into the room and fell into her lap. She was no longer crying, but her frail body collapsed into Temperance, still wracked with violent coughing fits. Her eyes were glassy, rimmed with tears, and an angry shade of red from the ammonia vapors. Her hands were scarlet and shaking._

"_Tempe," she cried almost inaudibly, "my chest hurts."_

_Though anger was bubbling inside of her chest, she could say nothing, could do nothing except offer Ashley a glass of water and hold her until she was coaxed into a fitful slumber._

"I stayed up with her, just to make sure she kept breathing," Brennan said bitterly, her eyes focused on hands that were clenched in her lap. "Her lungs had been damaged by the chemicals, and she couldn't go half an hour without falling into a violent coughing fit. I was terrified for her."

"Come on, Ash, it's time to get up for school," Temperance said softly, resting her hand on the little girl's shoulder and shaking her gently. She had just returned, fully dressed and with damp hair, from a quick shower. She glanced at the clock: 6:00am. The late November dawn would not come for a couple of hours more, and the only light emanated through the dimly-lit room from the soft glow of the desk lamp.

"But I didn't get to sleep at all," the child cried, curling up in a ball, her eyes dry, tearless, and filled with pain and anxiety. Temperance, who had spent her night in vigil at the bedside, was well aware, and it tore at her heart.

"I know, but it is very important that you come down and get dressed so that we can leave."

"I don't—" she began, but her words were halted mid-sentence by another wave of dry, hacking coughs that lasted so long she was sure the little girl would turn blue from lack of oxygen. But she didn't; her lungs finally released her, and Ashley's brown eyes, filled with pain, met with Temperance's. "I don't feel good."

And Temperance knew that.

"Tell you what," she said, smiling as much as she could. "I'll help you down, and we'll get you dressed, and if we can get ready fast enough, I'll put your hair in French braids. How does that sound?" A smile flickered on Ashley's face.

It was tedious, but eventually Temperance had helped the little girl wash her face, dress in jeans and a warm sweater, pack her bookbag, coax her to eat a few bites of cereal, and put her hair into two braided pigtails before a car horn sounded from the driveway.

Chris had taken a real liking to Ashley, and had taken to dropping the little girl off at her elementary school on the way to the high school in the mornings. It provided Temperance some peace of mind, too, knowing for sure that she got safely to school. So that morning, when Chris pulled into the Haegerman's driveway right at 7am, Temperance called to Heidi that they were leaving and, pulling a hat onto Ashley's head, started out the door.

They had hardly made it down the front walk when Ashley stopped suddenly, coughing so hard that Temperance was sure she would vomit. When the fit subsided, there were tears in the little girl's scared brown eyes.

"I know it hurts, sweetie," Temperance said, crouching down to the 7-year-old's level. "But we have to go. Come on." And she led her into the driveway and ushered her into the back seat of the car. She slid into the front seat, her bookbag on her lap, and turned to look at Chris.

"Is she okay?"

"I don't know," she said honestly. "But I need a favor."

Chris' sister, Rachel, called the elementary school and the high school, posing quite successfully as Heidi and informing them that Temperance and Ashley had terrible colds and would not be in that day. She didn't ask what was wrong, only agreed when Temperance asked her to take the two of them into Sanville on the way to her coloring class that morning.

"Where in Sanville?" Rachel had asked as Chris looked on with concern.

"Elizabeth Place," Temperance said without hesitation. "Ashley needs to see a doctor."

"Let me take you," Chris said, "I can help." But Tempe shook her head, adamant.

"You can help by bringing us back to the Haegerman's this afternoon. They can't suspect anything. Besides," she added with a small grin, "if you're not in school, who will bring my homework?" When he was silent, she went on. "Don't worry. We will be okay." A pregnant silence hung in the air until Rachel swung her bag over her shoulder and clapped her hands together loudly.

"Okay, kids," she said in a falsely cheerful voice. "Let's get out of here."

Temperance and Ashley piled into Rachel's beat-up yellow Ford. As they pulled out of the driveway, Temperance reached into her bookbag and found the rip in the lining that she had so carefully made that summer. Her fingers grazed the cool, starchy $10 bills like a touchstone; at least she had this, and maybe with it she could do something more to ease the pain of the child in the backseat. She turned in the front seat and saw that Ashley was resting her head on the window, flaming red braids poking out from under her pink hat, at peace for the moment.

The free clinic was almost always packed, and today was no different. It was noisy, filled with children and adults who were ill and seeking refuge from the bitter cold outside. Temperance carefully filled out the paperwork as best she could, careful to omit any trace of who they were and where they came from.

Heidi and Derek could not find out about this, at any cost.

She pulled out her Economics book, reading in silence as Ashley curled against her shoulder, drifting in and out of sleep when her lungs allowed her a reprieve. When the round-faced nurse at the door called for Ashley Clark, Temperance tucked the book away and took the little girl's hand, following the nurse back to exam room number eight.

"Good morning, ladies," she said with a smile. "My name is Nancy and I'll be taking care of you. Which one of you is Ashley?"

"Me," Ashley piped up.

"Okay, sweetheart, let's get your stats and I'll send the doctor in soon." Temperance nodded and watched as the kind nurse measured Ashley's height, weight, blood pressure, temperature, and heart rate, all the while noting her appearance with quiet concern. When she finished her writing on the chart, she closed the door behind her, leaving Ashley and Temperance alone in the exam room. They sat in chairs in the exam room and Ashley looked curiously at her.

"How come they called me the wrong last name?" She asked, cocking her head slightly to the side.

"Because we don't want Heidi and Derek to find out we're here. So we have to never say where we live, or our real names, or that we're in the system, okay?"

"Are we going to tell the truth about what Derek did?"

"We have to," Temperance said, rubbing the back of her neck. "It's the only way they'll be able to help you. But is it okay if I do most of the talking?" Ashley nodded.

"Is your name different, too?"

"Yes," she replied, helping the little girl climb up onto the exam table. The white paper crinkled loudly as she did. "Right now, I am Christine Clark. Can you remember that?" Ashley smiled.

"Yes," she said. "That's my mom's name."

The doctor entered the room moments later, introducing himself and shaking each of their hands after washing his own. He was Dr. Mark Walowicz, a middle-aged man with a square jaw and a receding hairline. He took a seat on a stool them and looked from one girl to the other.

"So, what brings you in this morning?" He asked. The girls glanced at each other.

"My sister had a bad reaction to some cleaning chemicals yesterday," Temperance said, meeting the doctor's eyes. "She was up all last night coughing. I'm afraid that she has chemical burns in her respiratory tract and on her eyes." The doctor scribbled something down on his chart.

"Anything other than the coughing and the eye trouble?" When Temperance shook her head, the doctor continued. "Can you tell me about the exposure?"

"She was cleaning the bathroom, and the door was closed." That should suffice, she thought. Her heart pounded a little harder. She was sure that the doctor's eyes could see right through her.

She had never been a very good liar.

To her immense relief, the doctor chose not to ask about the circumstances.

"How long was she… cleaning for?" he asked.

"About two hours."

"Has she had this reaction to the cleaner before?" It was a simple enough question, but Temperance knew, somehow, that the real question wasn't in those words.

"That was the first time she had used that cleaner," she said, choosing her words carefully. "The kind with a higher concentration of ammonia."

She was quite certain that the doctor knew what she was saying, because he pulled out a number of instruments to examine the little girl, who looked apprehensive until Temperance took her hand. After several minutes, the doctor scribbled more notes in the chart and looked up at them.

"Ashley," he told her in a kind voice, "It looks like you have lots of chemical burns from the cleaner in your eyes, on your throat, and probably on your lungs. You are very lucky that you haven't been coughing up blood." Temperance's brow furrowed as she processed this, and before she could stop herself a dozen questions had sprung to her mind.

"Can you treat her?" she blurted out, her eyes boring into the doctor's.

"For the most part," he told her. "I am going to give her a shot of steroids, some eyedrops, and an inhaler that should help with her breathing until her lungs heal. Because I can't determine exactly how bad the burns in her lungs are, I do not know whether there will be scarring. It is possible that you, my dear," he said, turning his attention back to the bleary-eyed redhead, "will make a full recovery."

"Thank you for your help, Doctor," Temperance said, feeling as though much of the burden she had carried all day had been lifted. Ashley nodded in agreement, but he shook his head.

"I can't promise anything," he told them, standing and making his way to the door of the exam room. He rested his hand on the doorknob, hesitating for a moment before turning back to Temperance. He seemed to search her eyes briefly, and she thought she saw a flicker of pity in them.

"Are things okay at home, Christine?" he asked. Temperance hesitated, forgetting for a moment that he was speaking to her. She remained silence, but it seemed as though the silence told Dr. Walowicz all that he needed to know. He dug into an inner pocket of his white coat and pulled out a tri-fold leaflet of glossy paper and handed it to her. "If you ever need them, there are some toll-free phone numbers on the back. You'll be able to call for free from any pay phone, okay?"

With that, he smiled kindly and turned to leave the room and retrieve the medications that he had recommended. Ashley looked over at her curiously, craning her neck to try to see what Temperance held in her hand.

"What is it?" Temperance looked down at the green-and-white flyer.

It advertised the Care House, a temporary shelter for women and families seeking relief from homelessness or domestic violence. And on the inside, half a dozen telephone numbers were listed that promised connection to sexual abuse, domestic violence, suicide, and rescue hotlines where help could be reached.

Temperance carefully folded the flyer and tucked it into the pocket of her winter coat.

Just in case.

* * *

The expression of horrified anger on Booth's face still persisted when Brennan looked over at him. She glanced at the clock; it was late, nearly 12:30am, and she had half expected her partner to drift into sleep as she was speaking.

Deep down, though, she knew that he had waited so long, and so patiently, to hear her story, and she knew that he would never disrespect her by brushing off her struggles and her challenges. On the contrary, she knew that every moment she relived her past was a moment that part of her burden weighed on Booth's shoulders, and that alone was a thought that made her want to stop speaking.

She hated doing that to him.

But he had let her into the dark corners of his past already. She wanted to trust him in the same way.

Booth looked into her face with concern and respectful curiosity when she grew silent, his gaze inquisitive. But he gave her space in the silence to continue speaking when she was ready.

"Ashley was given a steroid shot and, as promised, the inhaler and the eyedrops, which I stowed in the rip in my bookbag, just in case. We returned back to the Haegerman's home as planned, and they did not suspect a thing." She looked over at Booth, as though inviting questions, and he understood.

"I'm glad that everything worked out that time," he said, genuinely sounding relieved. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"I do have kind of a random question, though: what happened with your college applications?" Brennan smiled.

"About a week after this incident, I received notification that I was under consideration for a scholarship at Northwestern University, and so I answered the additional essay questions and promptly sent them in. Just two days later, the University of Chicago sent a letter to see whether it would be possible to schedule an interview for one of their scholarships.

"Of course, traveling into Chicago was out of the question at the time, and with the help of the guidance counselor at the high school, I was able to arrange a telephone interview with the scholarship committee at the school. Just before I left the Haegerman home in late January, I was also able to interview with the admissions committees at Stanford and Brown Universities via telephone." Booth smiled proudly at her, and she was surprised to find a slight flush rise into her cheeks under his gaze.

"Even through all of that, you still manage to get into Ivy League schools."

"No," she corrected hastily, "I didn't say I did get in, I just said that they granted me interviews."

"Oh, come on, you got in."

"Of course I got in," she told him. "I was exceptionally bright, with excellent grades, compelling personal statements, and impeccable SAT scores." Booth snorted at this. "What?" she asked him, but Booth only shook his head.

"There goes that modesty again," he said, chuckling.

"Wha—I'm not being immodest, I am simply stating my accomplishments." Booth continued to grin.

"I know, Bones, and I'm proud of you, too," he told her honestly. "So how come you left the Haegermans'?"

Brennan sighed almost inaudibly, furrowing her brow slightly, a cloud of worry misting over her clear blue eyes. It made Booth wish he hadn't asked her anything at all.

"Later, Booth." He left it at that, and she continued. "But the result was that, at the end of that January, I was separated from Ashley and relocated to the home of a young couple who lived in the southernmost suburbs of Chicago. They were Tim and Mary Rose Conway, in their early 30's, and they lived in a very nice townhouse in a good, safe neighborhood. The school district was excellent, and I registered myself as a high school senior. My transcripts were passed along, and even though it was a month into the semester, I was able to pick up where I had left off in my studies.

"I wasn't with the Conways for long, though to me it seemed like an eon. When I first arrived with them, it took a lot of energy to reorient myself, to try to adapt. At that point in the system, I developed a great deal of apathy toward my caregivers and my peers. I would hardly speak, and barely left their guest bedroom. Mary Rose tried; I think that she wanted female companionship, so she tried to take me shopping, to the movies, she even offered to take me to the Art Institute and the Field Museum of Chicago. But I was adamant.

"I went to school, and then spent my evenings cloistered in my bedroom at the Conway home. I did not speak unless it was necessary.

"It didn't take long for the Conways to become irritated by my behavior, though I'm still not sure why. They did something in late February that had never happened before: they made an appointment for a court hearing."

"Why?" Brennan shrugged as if the answer should have been obvious.

"They wanted to return me to the system."

* * *

"Case number 0021692JF08, Petition for termination of foster care," the silver-haired judge called into the nearly empty room. It was nearing 4:45pm, the end of the work day, and the other cases had been resolved. Now, only Temperance and Tim and Mary Rose Conway remained. The Conways approached the front of the room, taking a seat behind one of the tables generally reserved for the defendant and his attorney.

"Please state your case at this time, Mr. and Mrs. Conway." Mr. Conway cleared his throat and put his arm around his wife's shoulders.

"Your honor, we took Temperance Brennan into our home just over a month ago. We don't want anyone to think that we aren't good citizens or that we don't care, but we've tried our best with Temperance."

"It's impossible, your honor," Mary Rose started in, some of her strawberry blond bangs falling into her eyes as she did so. "She refuses to speak to us at all, or even to be in the same room for longer than 20 minutes at a time. She neglects her chores and, frankly, she doesn't make an effort. She doesn't fit in, you know?"

In a sea of wooden benches, Temperance sank down in her seat, her face impassive. She truly didn't care what these people thought of her, and she had the thought of college to sustain her. She had recently been informed that she was a finalist for a full scholarship to Northwestern University, and she had received quite a lot of financial assistance from the University of Chicago; those thoughts sustained her.

This was only transient. It wouldn't matter, and soon it would be over.

The judge seemed to consider them, looking surprised.

"Has Miss Brennan done anything that violates state law or her restrictions as a ward of the state?"

"No, your honor. Like we said, she goes to school, comes home, and never speaks."

"Have you tried speaking to her about this?"

"Yes, and nothing's worked."

"And you are absolutely sure about your decision to relinquish custody?"

"Yes, we are."

The judge paused a moment before lifting her gavel, looking at Temperance with concern and pity evident in her expression.

"Then the State of Illinois assumes custody of Miss Brennan until such time as an appropriate foster family can be secured." She banged the gavel summarily. "Who is here representing Cook County Child and Family Services?"

It was pointless to even ask, Temperance thought later, looking back. Only 5 people were present in the courtroom, the 5th being a transcriptionist.

The silence continued to laugh at them. The judge seemed appalled.

"Nobody is here from social services? Where is this girl supposed to go?" she asked the younger woman who was recording all of the courtroom notes.

"We could call them," she suggested quietly, but the social workers had left for the day. It would have been pointless.

Temperance grew uneasy, straightening slightly in her seat. Mary Rose shifted her weight nervously between her feet.

"What about the county home?"

"They're at capacity."

"So where is this child supposed to go?" There was a moment's pause in the conversation, and then—

"We could send her to juvenile hall, just temporarily."

"I don't like it at all," the judge said, her face showing anger, "sending a perfectly innocent teenager to the correctional facility just because social services is too lazy to come down and take care of her. It's not right."

"I don't like it either, but it's our only option. And it will be temporary."

And, at long last, the judge turned the shiny mahogany gavel over slowly in her hand before striking it solidly in front of her.

"Then the Court remands Miss Temperance Brennan, ward of the state, to the juvenile correctional facility for temporary placement, until we revisit the case following the court recess in two weeks' time."

"Two weeks?" Temperance blurted out, forgetting about their settings. Two weeks was an eternity; she would miss school, she would miss out on the college admissions processes. She had an interview set up with Northwestern that she would miss if she lost phone privileges. "Your honor, I cannot miss two weeks of school. I can't. My education is the only thing I have going for me right now, it's the only thing that's been giving me hope for getting out of this system and building my own life. If I miss two weeks of classes, I'll be set back an entire year. I've been accepted to college, and the admissions committees are considering me for scholarships. I can't lose those opportunities, please," she was nearly crying now, and it was taking a great deal of effort to betray as little emotion as possible on her face.

The judge considered this, her eyes piercing the tension in the courtroom. She looked from Temperance to the Conways, who, judging by their shocked expressions, had not heard this before. She narrowed her eyes.

"How do I know that this is all true?" she asked.

"I—I have the letters," hastily she dug the small wad of envelopes addressed to her out of her knapsack. Hands trembling slightly, she carried them forward, up to the bench, and handed them to the judge, who sifted quickly through them. She looked at Temperance carefully.

Neither noticed the Conway's slip from the room.

"While there's nothing I can do about your two weeks in the juvenile correction facility," she began, Temperance's heart sinking rapidly, "I will write you a promissory order to allow you to go to school, provided that you return immediately following your classes, and you will be allowed a number of telephone calls.

"Again, young lady, I am so sorry about these circumstances. And I know that you did not deserve this happening to you. None of the youth ever deserve it," she gave a small smile. "I do hope that you'll pursue your education. Many young people cannot integrate into society after they outgrow the foster care system, but I certainly hope you will."

Temperance nodded, unable to say anything. She was grateful for some justice, but her stomach knotted in on itself.

The decision had already been made.

* * *

Hey, I know it's been forever since I updated last, but life has this crazy habit of being really unpredictable. But at least you have a nice long chapter to keep you occupied.

I know that this stuff is hard to handle, and angsty and depressing. I'm sorry. That's just how it goes. There will be hope and happy tidbits and humor thrown in, don't you worry (because, truly, nobody's life is that dim). But this was not really the chapter for it.

You can look for an update in the next couple of weeks. Until then, please review and let me know what you think!

Liria


	9. Chapter 9

I still don't own anything that you recognize :-)

* * *

Growing Upside Down - Chapter 9

* * *

"They sent you to prison?" Booth sputtered, his voice trembling with rage and hurt and sorrow for her. "For not fitting in?"

"It wasn't fair. I know that now… But then—back then, I was powerless to stop it." She dropped her gaze away from the pain in his eyes and stood suddenly, reaching for the empty glasses on the table. Booth's hand shot out and rested on her forearm gently and she looked from his hand to his eyes. They were still warm, brown, and filled with hurt for her.

But his eyes held another emotion too. It was an expression that told her she needed to finish telling the story. She knew, and she understood, and the corners of her lips turned upward in a small smile.

"I'll sit back down in a minute, Booth," she told him, gently pulling free of his touch. "I'm just going to use the restroom. Feel free to besiege the refrigerator if you're hungry." Booth laughed, standing and stretching.

"Raid, Bones, not besiege. And thanks, I am hungry. Want me to make you something?"

"No, thanks." She said, turning and heading down the hall into her bathroom, stretching the tension from her neck and shoulders. She returned to the kitchen minutes later to find Booth leaning against the counter, cell phone in hand.

"Did you get a call?" She asked. "Because if you need to go, I understand. It's late and I've been talking for quite some time. " He smiled at her, setting his phone back down on the counter.

"Nope, I'm staying here tonight, remember? And I told you I was hungry, but all you have is tofurkey and granola. I ordered us a pizza. Don't worry—" he said when she began to open her mouth. "I ordered half with the veggies you like. "

"Thank you, Booth. Didn't I put chili in the freezer for you?"

"I ate it on Tuesday while we were working on the Durway case. "

He stood against the counter, taking one step toward her, eyes fixed on her crystal ones. He was searching them, she knew. She blinked and looked at her hand where it rested on the countertop. Very gently, he covered her hand with his.

"You okay, Bones?" She nodded.

"Yeah, I'm okay, just a little tired." He nodded, understanding.

"I'll understand if you want to get some sleep. You can finish the story another time."

"No, I find it's best to take your advice about personal matters, and you said that this is like ripping off a bandage. Quickly and all at once. That's what I'm doing." Booth grinned at her, and she tilted her head to the side. "What?"

"You're taking my advice. "

"Yes, well, you've proven to me time and again that it's beneficial to go with your judgment on issues of a personal nature. " She smiled at him, slipping her hand out from under his and sitting on the barstool at the kitchen counter. He followed suit, and she took a breath.

* * *

"Brennan, let's go," Ricardo commanded, shaking his large ring of keys at her. It was his favorite threat, shaking the keys. Effective, too. Temperance could imagine that it would hurt if she were hit with them. Grateful for the excuse to leave the filthy 8x8 cell, she slid from her cot and hurried out behind the guard as he slammed the bars back in place with a clattering of metal. There were groans and angry threats elicited by the noise from the others in surrounding cells

Juvenile hall was easily one of the worst places she had ever been. Five days she'd been here, and she would rather be back with Derek and Heidi. The rules were different here, the system took careful planning and navigation. She had learned that the hard way on her first day here. She accidentally made eye contact with one of the others during shower time and now had a shining purple eye and a cracked rib or two that hurt when she breathed too deep, but the nurses at the center were less than accommodating.

She was lucky that her interview with Northwestern yesterday was over the phone rather than in person. They had given her precious phone time in a private room and even had the respect not to monitor the call. The committee had put her on a conference call, and Temperance felt that the interview had gone well. The chair of the committee told her that she could expect a decision about a scholarship before the end of March.

She trailed Ricardo's heavy footsteps down several corridors, weaving their way through the center and stopping a number of times to unlock doors. Everything was locked here. Everything was locked, everything was cold, everything carried a distinct smell, like chemical cleaner that couldn't quite eradicate the stench of body odor and mold.

The food here was terrible, the people were worse. The girls were hardened, a product of a cruel world where survival instincts drove even the youngest to harden themselves at a young age. They ate their meals with plastic forks and spoons, no knives. The utensils were recovered and counted at the end of each meal, just in case.

There was a television on her ward, set to MTV. She hadn't watched MTV since before her parents left, but somehow TV was no longer important to her. The others played cards, gambling their snack privileges and phone time. The toilet and sink she used were in her cell; nothing here was private. She wore navy blue sweatpants, slide-on plastic sandals with socks, and white T-shirts. Only sports bras were allowed here, no underwire.

Finally Ricardo led her to a private bathroom, the one the visitors were allowed to use, and handed her knapsack and street clothes to her. True to her word, the judge allowed her to attend her school. It meant she had to wake very early to dress and be chaperoned out before the usual morning routine at the detention center. She dressed quickly, ran a brush through her hair, and emerged from the bathroom.

"Finished?" Sherry, the guard at the front, asked her, taking back her bag of personal belongings for storage.

"Yes, thank you," Temperance said, slinging the knapsack over her shoulder.

"I'll get Ernie out to warm up the van for you. You certainly have an odd situation, my dear. You don't deserve to be here."

"I agree. I know you have no choice, but thank you for honoring the judge's requests for me."

"You are welcome, dear. And, I have something for you," she said, holding out a brown paper bag. "I know you didn't eat breakfast yesterday and prisons don't exactly brown-bag it. There's a bagel with cream cheese for before school, and a PB&J, banana and some cookies for lunch."

Temperance took the bag, her stomach growling in anticipation. The tougher inmates had taken most of what she'd been given for supper the day before, so it had been a while since she'd eaten. While the consistent deprivation of food was not new to her, the feeling of hunger was still uncomfortable.

"Thank you so much, Sherry, I really appreciate it." She said sincerely. The van horn sounded from outside and, waving goodbye, she dashed outside and hopped into the van.

School had always been her escape, and today was no different. She had been lucky that the judge had taken pity on her, arranging for her to be driven out just a couple extra miles to the school she'd been at with the family who had taken her back, Burtonsville High, so she wouldn't be set back any more with this move. She still rarely spoke during the day, both to her teachers and to her peers, but she relished every moment where she could sit with her studies, undisturbed, and feel a little bit of hope for her future. People whispered behind her back about the quiet girl who now smelled a little funny and looked too pale and drawn, but she ignored them, eating the sandwich that Sherry had packed for her and turning through the pages of her Government Studies book.

* * *

"It was an awful place to live," she said to Booth unnecessarily. "There was danger and fear everywhere I looked, even when I was asleep. The girl who shared the cell with me often uttered threats. More than ever, I decided I wanted to learn martial arts, or some other form of self-defense. I was a very good runner, but at the detention center, there was nowhere to run.

"I developed very good instincts for danger, though, that's one thing that being in the system did for me. Being able to feel a threat before it was actually made helped me to evade a lot of situations that could have turned out badly. But still…"

"Those instincts can only take you so far, right?" Booth asked. He wanted so badly to reach out and put his arm around her, to comfort her and simply let her know that he was still there, maybe somehow that would ease the pain of reliving her past. Brennan only nodded. "Did you ever think about running?"

"Every day," she told him. "I would have if there wasn't so much holding me to the path the system had set for me. If I'd run, I would have been untraceable. I would have lost communication with the universities I was applying to, and I would have lost all of my things. Those were the only things I had left of my family, I couldn't let them go." Without having to ask, she knew Booth understood. He knew her better than anyone, even, perhaps, better than Angela.

"So how long did you have to stay in Juvy Hall?" he asked her, knowing that even though the judge said two weeks, it was all too easy for a foster child to be lost in the system.

Just as Brennan opened her mouth to answer, there was a knock at the door. The two of them locked eyes for just a moment. Then, as if a gunshot had gone off, both raced toward the door, Booth digging for his wallet and Brennan grabbing her purse from the end table by the door. After hastily checking the door to confirm that, as they had suspected, the pizza had arrived, Booth flung the door open. Brennan was too quick for him—she slid around his broad shoulders and came face-to-face with Devon, one of the doormen in her building. In his hand, he held a pizza box.

"Good evening, Devon," she said, smiling as Booth opened the door a bit wider to stand in the doorframe. "What do I owe you?"

"$12 even, Dr. Brennan," the broad-chested man smiled at her. As Brennan dug the money out of her wallet, Devon's gaze shifted to a sullen-faced Booth. "She beat you to it, Ranger. Gotta be quicker next time," he smirked.

"It's okay, Booth," she said, handing the bills to Devon. She turned to smile at her partner. "You can get the tip." She took the pizza from the doorman and Booth chuckled, digging some cash out of his wallet. He handed it to Devon.

"Thanks, man," he said. "Pass whatever he deserves to the kid who delivered the pizza. Thanks for looking after us." Devon winked at them.

"Sure thing. You have a good evening. Wrap up another case?"

"No, Booth's building is being fumigated, so he's staying here for a while." Devon nodded and tucked the money into his navy jacket. He tipped his hat to them.

"You have a good evening, folks," he told them cordially. After bidding farewell, Brennan carried the pizza inside and Booth locked the door behind her.

"I can't believe you wouldn't let me pay for the pizza. I was the one who ordered it," he said, pulling two plates from Brennan's cupboard.

"Don't be silly, Booth. I wanted to," she said, setting the box down on the counter. "Besides, you'll have to be quicker than that to beat me," she smirked. Booth shook his head in disbelief.

"Yeah, well, next time I won't let that happen."

"But you said that last time."

"You know what? Just eat your food, Bones."

The two of them grabbed pizza, choosing to sit on the stools at the counter for a change in scenery. They munched on the pizza for a moment, then Booth set his slice down.

"How long? In Juvenile Hall?"

"Only a week," Brennan smiled. "I was very lucky."

* * *

The woman stepped into the visitor's atrium, if that's even what you could call this tiny, disheveled, gray room. The tiny windows hardly lit it, and she squinted as she removed her sunglasses. She was smartly dressed in a skirt suit with a rose-colored blouse, moderate heels, and large, dangling earrings that looked as though they had been crafted somewhere in the Far East. Tucking her sunglasses on her head atop the mass of wavy blond hair, she stepped up to the empty reception window of the reception counter and rapped sharply on the glass.

"What can I do for you, ma'am?" Sherry asked her.

"I'm here for Temperance Brennan."

"Oh, good, that girl doesn't deserve to be here. I hope you have the proper paperwork?"

"Of course." The woman withdrew a small stack of paper from her sleek leather briefcase and slid them under the heavy glass toward Sherry. "My name is Clara Toyne, by the way." Sherry smiled at her.

"Sherry Lapinski," she said, checking through the papers she'd just been handed. "So how did you hear 'bout the Brennan girl's case?"

"Oh, the judge is one of my good friends. I heard about what happened—she feels terrible—and I'm in the position to help. She sounds like quite the kid, and I want to help her out." Sherry nodded and kept turning through the pages. This woman was only about 30, unmarried, and worked as one of the special exhibits coordinators at the natural history museum.

"You're registered as a foster parent?"

"Yes." Sherry nodded. Everything seemed to check out, and she told Clara this.

"Okay, this all seems to be in order. I'll need to run everything by my supervisor and get some things entered with the computer system, but I don't foresee any problems. Do you have any questions?"

"Yes, where is Temperance? I would like to at least ask her whether she'd like to go with me." Sherry smiled.

"I'm sure she'd rather be anywhere else but here, but there's no harm in checking. I'll get Sam, he's one of our day guards. He'll show you around, help you find Temperance."

Temperance hated exercise time. They forced everyone into the courtyard when the weather was nice and made them stay there for an hour and the others ran and played basketball with a hoop with no net. Others gambled, hid away in corners to pass around a contraband cigarette, got in fights or simply loitered. She, on the other hand, had taken one of her books out with her, sitting with her back flush against the cold metal of the high fence, trying to remain invisible. The noise surrounding her was tuned out as she struggled for just a moment of peace.

As she turned the page of Darwin's The Origin of Species, she could feel that someone was watching her. Pulling her gaze from the pages of the book, she turned her head to look upward and saw the cause of her discomfort: a slim woman of average height stood ten feet away, removing her sunglasses to get a better look at her.

"Temperance Brennan?" she asked. Temperance nodded, and to her surprise the woman smiled broadly at her. "My name is Clara Toyne, and if it's alright with you, I'd like to get you out of here." She was still smiling. Temperance faltered. It sounded too good to be true.

"I don't understand. How?"

"I heard about your case," the woman said, "and I want to help. If it's alright with you, I would like to become your foster parent." Still, Temperance remained uncertain. Seemingly sensing her nervousness, Clara continued to speak. "I am a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, I live alone in an apartment at Lincoln Park, and I heard about your situation from the judge, who happens to be a good friend of mine. Like I said, you have a place to stay if you would like it."

"I would like that," Temperance said, surely but quietly. "When will everything be finalized?" Clara grinned at her, her brilliant white teeth showing.

"Five minutes ago. We can leave whenever you'd like." Temperance nodded, feeling immensely relieved. She was finally going to get out of the dismal youth prison, would not have to worry about her safety every moment of every day or whether she would have her meals stolen or withheld. That was her hope, and with a smile on her face she stood.

"I would like to leave now."

And just 10 minutes later, Temperance was wearing jeans and her purple Chucks, sitting in the front seat of Clara's Toyota with her things in the backseat of the car. She glanced back sadly at the black garbage bags lolling shapelessly on the seat, the knot at the tops bobbing as they went over a speedbump in the parking lot.

"I can't believe that they make you put everything in a trash bag," Clara said, shaking her head disapprovingly while they waited at a red light. "I'm sorry about that. We'll have to comb the sale pages in the paper and see if we can get you a real suitcase."

"No, Ms. Toyne, you don't have to do that," Temperance said, staring into her lap. "Besides, I had a duffel in the beginning. It was my father's. But a seam at the bottom ripped out just before I was sent to the detention center, and it was tossed out before I could mend it."

"Well, if you won't let me buy a new one, at least let me give you one of mine. I used to do a lot of globetrotting and have more bags than I know what to do with." She smiled at Temperance before turning her gaze back to the road. "And please, call me Clara. Ms. Toyne is my crazy aunt with six cats who lives in my grandparents' basement." She caught Temperance's eye and smiled at her.

The apartment was beautiful, situated just two blocks from the park in a good neighborhood. It was a spacious two-bedroom that was well-furnished and decorated with vibrant artwork whose origins Temperance could not pinpoint. She carried her bags through the apartment, following Clara, and the blonde woman led her to the guest room.

It was bright, with a large window at one end with pale yellow chiffon curtains draping it. The full-sized bed was draped with a simple pale blue and yellow quilt, and a small potted tree stood in the corner. There was a dresser with a mirror, a spacious closet, a small writing desk and chair, and a few more pieces of unique artwork that adorned the walls.

"This is your room," Clara said as Temperance looked around, bags still in hand. "I'll let you settle in a bit, and we can go out for dinner. What kind of food do you like?"

"Anything is better than prison food or no food," she answered truthfully. "I would prefer somewhere with a more lenient dress code, of course, but wherever you would like to go is fine with me, " she smiled. "Thank you so much for getting me out of there." Something she said made Clara's facial expression sadden, and she gave her a small smile back.

"Very well, then," she said. "You take your time, grab a nap, let me know if you'd like to do any laundry. We can go for dinner at seven if that's alright." Temperance nodded.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome, sweetie." She closed the door almost all the way, leaving Temperance to herself. She dropped her garbage bag on the bed and slowly began to unpack her things. Sherry had helped her keep her clothing clean at the center, but she had so little of it that it filled only one drawer of her dresser. She carefully laid the jewelry from her mother, as well as her dwindling supply of makeup, atop the dresser, and her knapsack went next to the desk. Crumpling up the now-empty garbage bag, she stuffed it into the wastebasket and stood to look out the window. The streets of Chicago were bustling beneath her, and for the first time in a long time she felt that she could be a part of that life.

* * *

It's been forever, I know. Please review!

Liria


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